May 16, 2005

Box Score

CINCINNATI - A day after clinching a spot in the Atlantic 10 tournament, Dayton fell to Xavier in the finale of an A-10 baseball series 7-3 Monday at Hayden Field. With the loss, Dayton fell to 30-21 overall and 13-8 in A-10 play while Xavier improved to 19-33, 9-15 A-10.

The Flyers were out hit 10-7 despite multi-hit games by Brandon Godzik and Michael Massa. Godzik, who was named the A-10 Player of the Week this afternoon, was 2-for-4 including a two-run home run.

Massa increased his hitting streak to a team-best 14 games with a 2-for-3 day.

Kaleb Thompson suffered the loss after surrendering six runs on 10 hits over 4.1 innings pitched.

Dayton opened the scoring in the second inning after Benoit led off with a double down the line. UD then had runners on the corners with one out after Chandler singled through the right side. McSoley drove in the first run of the game with a deep fly ball to centerfield for a sacrifice fly, which gave the Flyers a 1-0 lead midway through the second frame.

Xavier came back with three runs in the bottom of the second to take a 3-1 lead. A leadoff solo home run evened the score at 1-all. Then with runners on the corners and two outs, the Musketeer batter beat out a near double play ball, which allowed the second XU run to score. The following batter then tripled off the left centerfield wall to give Xavier a 3-1 advantage after two innings of play.

The Musketeers stretched their lead to 6-1 with a two-run blast to left field in the third and another on a double steal attempt with runners on the corners in the fifth inning.

UD got two runs back in the sixth with Godzik's seventh home run of the season. After Benoit worked a leadoff walk, Godzik drove a tape measure shot to right centerfield to cut the XU lead to 6-3.

Xavier closed out the scoring with an RBI groundout in the seventh inning to clinch a 7-3 victory.

If the season were to end Monday, Dayton would be the second place team in the A-10 West Division and the #4 seed in the A-10 Championship and play in the opening game at noon on Wednesday, May 25.

The Flyers will host Otterbein Tuesday in their final non-conference game of the season at 4 p.m.