Nov. 2, 2008

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DAYTON, Ohio - The University of Dayton women's soccer team celebrated its senior day with a 2-0 win against La Salle Sunday at Baujan Field. Two Kelly Blumenschein goals gave the Flyers the victory they needed to secure the No. 2 seed and a first-round bye in the Atlantic 10 Championship Tournament held Nov. 6-9 in St. Louis.

"Finally you feel like you can exhale. I love this group, the way they battle and fight," said UD head coach Mike Tucker. "We took it right down to the wire today. So, it feels really good to have the bye. I know how much it means and now we just have to get ready for whoever we play on Friday and be ready to play."

The day started with a ceremony to celebrate UD senior women's soccer players: Amanda Gallow, Kim Sacher, Deana Waintraub and Stephanie Wurth.

As is Dayton's tradition, all national anthems of seniors are played in their final home game. The Canadian national anthem was played in honor of Ontario native Waintraub.

"To be honest I almost started to cry. That was my first collegiate game I had heard my national anthem, so I had my hand on my heart and I sung all the words and it felt great. It was an honor to hear it," she said.

The Flyers (14-5-1, 8-2-1 A-10) brought it in the first half - out shooting the Explorers 7-1 and staying in their attacking third the majority of the period - but could not convert any of their opportunities.

The second half saw much of the same as Dayton pounded the La Salle goal and the Flyers kept getting turned away.

It's a play by UD senior goalkeeper Deana Waintraub that switched the momentum even more in favor of the Flyers. The Explorers were on a fast break in the 70th minute with Melanie Gamble taking a blast from a great angle. Waintraub made a diving save and pushed the ball to the right of the goal to keep both teams scoreless.

"It felt good to come out and make that save and keep the clean sheet," said Waintraub. "The team works hard for me and I try to put out just as much for them. Her face actually lit up, because the entire goal was basically open. Right as she struck the ball, I took a step to my right and exploded up and just made sure I got both hands to the ball and popped right back up just in case there was a rebound. I couldn't do anything but explode because I was so happy that I was able to make that save."

"That was one great save by Deana. That's a game changer right there," said Tucker. "We could have gone down a goal and I'm sure we would have had to fight through eleven people in front of it. So that was a game changer, but once again our kids in the back fought and battled."

Not more than five minutes later, Blumenschein put away the game winner in the 75th minute. On a service from freshman defender Kathleen Beljan, she settled the ball in the box, and cranked a shot past La Salle keeper Melissa Sanger, who had 10 saves in goal for the Explorers.

Blumenschein scored her sixth goal of the season and second of the match to give the Flyers some breathing room in the 81st minute. Junior Caitlin Proffitt sent a beautiful cross into the box and Blumenschein masterfully hit a one-touch volley to the back of the net.

"It's pretty awesome," said Blumenschein. "It felt good to get a couple goals in A-10 play before the end of the season."

With the loss, the Explorers (9-8-3, 5-4-2 A-10) saw their season come to an end. They needed a tie or win over the Flyers to take the No. 6 and final seed of the Atlantic 10 Championship Tournament. Instead Duquesne owns the tiebreaker over La Salle and took the final seed.

Waintraub posted her fifth shutout of the season and the Flyers improve to 12-2-1 when she is in goal.

"Preparing for the game we all sat down and talked about what we wanted to accomplish and the main goal was three points today," said Waintraub. "It was a little sloppy at times, but we made it through the game and when it came down to it everyone played for the four of us seniors and we played equally as hard for all of them."