Defensive effort downs Dayton

For the first time since the Penn State game Dec. 5, the men’s basketball team failed to break 50 points.

But like that game, Temple found a way to win, as the Owls defeated Dayton, 49-41.

The Owls improved to 23-5 overall and 11-2 in the Atlantic Ten Conference. The Flyers dropped to 18-9 overall and 7-6 in the A-10.

It was Dayton’s lowest point total since a 59-38 loss to George Washington on Jan. 18, 1997. Entering the game, the Flyers averaged 70.3 points per game.

For Temple, the win marked the eighth time this season the Owls have held an opposing team 20 points or more below its scoring average. The Owls held the Flyers to 26.8 percent shooting from the field for the game, the lowest field-goal percentage by a Temple opponent this season.

“I know it didn’t look pretty from an offensive standpoint, for either team,” coach Fran Dunphy said. “I’ll wait and make a judgment about how well we were defensively until after I see the film, but I thought Dayton really guarded us hard and got in our face and made it really hard for us to run any offense.”

Neither team could buy a basket in the first half. Dayton shot 16.1 percent from the field and connected on just 5 of its 31 shot attempts. Temple did not fare much better, making just four more shots in as many attempts to lead, 19-13, at halftime. The Owls and the Flyers were deadlocked in the rebounding column at 24 all, and each team’s leading scorer – junior forward Lavoy Allen for Temple and junior forward Chris Wright for Dayton – had six points. Allen had pulled in 10 rebounds in the first 20 minutes, however, and finished just shy of a double-double with nine points and 17 rebounds.

“I thought Dayton had a lot of opportunities in the first half that just didn’t go,” Dunphy said, “and I thought we did, too. I thought both teams were really missing an ingredient in terms of finishing at the rim.”

“I think it started off with a lot of missed layups on both sides,” Allen said. “Everyone was missing. It wasn’t just one or two guys. I don’t know what it was. It was just the way the game went.

“At the end, it was very physical,” Allen added. “They wouldn’t let us run our sets, so we tried to get stops at the end. It was a very physical game.”

Temple opened the second half on a 14-9 run to build an 11-point lead – its largest of the game – with 13 minutes, 22 seconds remaining.

But Dayton would gradually chip away at the Owls’ lead. Normally reliable free-throw shooters like senior guard Ryan Brooks and sophomore guard Juan Fernandez – who shoot 80.2 percent and 85.5 percent from the foul line, respectively – each missed a foul shot later in the second half. As a team, the Owls shot 61.9 percent from the free-throw line.

“We obviously got ourselves to the [foul] line in the second half, but we didn’t shoot it great at the foul line,” Dunphy said. “It seemed like every time we went, we went 1-for-2.”

And those misses, along with a few timely late 3-pointers from Dayton senior guard Rob Lowery, got the Flyers to within four points with 39.9 seconds left.

Temple travels to La Salle for its next game, a 2 p.m. tipoff at Tom Gola Arena Sunday. The Owls would clinch the Big 5 title with a win.

Game Notes: Sophomore guard Ramone Moore led both teams with 13 points. He has now led Temple in scoring six of the last seven games…Senior guard Luis Guzman tied a career high in assists with seven. He also did not commit a turnover for the third straight game…Dayton was 12-0 this season when it held an opponent below 60 points…The Flyers were also 15-4 when outrebounding an opponent. They outrebounded the Owls 45-42…Dayton had won the last three meetings against Temple before tonight’s win…Dayton has not beaten a Top 25 team on the road since Dec. 8, 2007 versus then- No. 11 Louisville.

Jennifer Reardon can be reached at jennifer.reardon@temple.edu.

Dayton ends season in semis

The No. 1 seed and Atlantic Ten Conference champion Dayton Flyers sent the volleyball team home in four games.

“I expected to get to the semifinals [of the Atlantic Ten Tournament],” volleyball coach Bob Bertucci said. “The girls worked hard the last month of the season and committed to improving to getting better. We got everybody playing well enough to win. We overachieved in a sense.”

Bertucci knew all year that he had an overachieving team. He also knew that when he saw top-seeded Dayton next on his plate in the A-10 Tournament that he needed a new game plan. So, he sent out a completely different starting lineup from the one the Flyers saw earlier in the season by moving defensive specialists to outside hitters and his outside hitters to the back. Bertucci caught No. 24 Dayton off guard but only for the first game. The Flyers ended the Owls’ season 3 games to 1 game by scores of 16-25, 25-23, 25-14 and 25-16.

“We came out there and absolutely pounded them in the first game,” Bertucci said. “We wanted to come out with something they haven’t seen before, but they did a great job of making adjustments.”

After a close match the night before with George Washington, who the Owls (14-12 overall, 9-6 A-10) squeaked by in five games, Dayton (29-3 overall, 14-1 A-10) showed why it was the best team in the tournament. Dayton’s junior outside hitters Lindsay Fletemier and Becky Novacek both notched 17 kills and found open holes that Temple thought it had covered.

After dominating the first set, the Flyers made the necessary changes, while the Owls went back to their routine lineup. The switch back was not enough, as the eventual A-10 Champions finished what they started. Senior outside hitter Yun Yi Zhang had 30 kills to lead all players to end her Temple career with authority.

“I don’t think I would have changed anything,” said Bertucci, who has spend 14 years as coach at Temple. “You find things you could have done better, but I’d say all and all every change we made there ended in a positive, and I couldn’t be prouder of this group.”

The Owls are already looking ahead to next season, as Bertucci announced that Temple has signed Emily Frazier to help fill the void in the middle left by Zhang and senior setter Jackie Morrison. Zhang was named first-team all-conference, while Morrison was named to the second team.

“Yi is almost impossible to replace, but we’ll find a way,” Bertucci said. “As for Jackie, ask me a year ago if I think someone could do what she did, and I’d say maybe. Now, I don’t know what we’re going to do without her. She did things on the court this year that amazed me.”

In an interview with Morrison earlier in the season, she said she expects players like sophomore outside hitter/setter Elizabeth Prang and junior middleback Jessica Antosz to step up and fill the leadership void and lead a new set of Owls back to the A-10 Tournament again next year.

When asked if Bertucci would take time off or go right into next season’s plans, Morrison responded with a chuckle: “You’re going to get me in trouble asking questions like that.”

Christian Audesirk can be reached at christian.audesirk@temple.edu.

Dayton’s dominant performance downs volleyball

The Flyers, who have just one conference loss, defeated the Owls, 3-1, Sunday.

On a day when Philadelphia was the center of the sports’ world’s attention, coach Bob Bertucci and the volleyball team (10-10 overall, 6-5 Atlantic Ten Conference) tried to add to the frenzy. Unfortunately, the Owls dropped their second game in a row, including an upset bid to knock off A-10 powerhouse Dayton (21-3, 10-1) Sunday. The Flyers beat the Owls, 3 games to 1, by scores of 25-13, 25-20, 29-31 and 25-23.

The Owls played their home game at La Salle’s Tom Gola Arena, but the struggles of the day didn’t end there. Temple had to try and solve Flyers redshirt junior outside hitter Lindsay Fletemier.

Fletemier tallied 23 kills and seemed to find a small portion of Owl court every time she touched the ball, as she recorded an attack percentage of .606. Fletemier wasn’t alone, as the most well-rounded team in the conference featured three other players – redshirt freshman outside hitter Rachel Krabacher, junior middleback Becky Novacek and junior outside hitter Amanda Cowdrey – with double-digit kills.

It wasn’t all bad for Temple though, as freshman Danielle Carrozza notched a career game with 19 digs and two service aces. Senior setter and captain Jackie Morrison had herself another double-double with 49 assists and 12 digs. She complemented those statistics with three kills. Junior outside hitter Yun Yi Zhang led both teams with 26 kills.

Although Temple trailed 2 games to 0, the Owls fought back to avoid the sweep. The 31-29 set featured 17 ties and four lead changes, advancing well beyond the 25-point mark.

“Coming back the way we did showed a lot of character,” Bertucci said. “It’s just inconsistency that’s holding us back. We showed that we have the ability to compete with a team like Dayton, but we have to be able to sustain that level of play.”

In the fourth and final set, the Owls eliminated the early errors that plagued them but could only serve as a thorn in Dayton’s side for so long, as the Flyers’ well-rounded attack prevailed.

“We started double-teaming [Fletemier] in the third set, and that limited the number of times she got the ball,” Bertucci said. “We made a good adjustment.”

Bertucci said outside blocking and communication will be keys going into the final stretch of the season.
“We played much better than we did on Friday night, and that was encouraging,” he said. “We started the same [as Friday], but we got ourselves out of it. Hopefully, the girls take away the importance of really competing from the outset.”

The Owls sit sixth in the A-10 standings with games against La Salle and Fordham this week. The Explorers have no conference wins this season, while the Rams are only one loss away from playoff elimination.

Christian Audesirk can be reached at christian.audesirk@temple.edu.

Dramatic end caps rejuvenating season for men’s soccer

The men’s soccer team’s season came to an end Friday in the Atlantic Ten Conference semifinals.
The Owls lost to the Dayton Flyers, 2-1, in overtime at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh. The Cherry and White finished the season with a 10-5-4 overall record and 6-1-2 in A-10 play.

The Owls sent the game into overtime in the 71st minute on a shot by senior defender James Suevo, who connected with the back of the net and tied the game with his third goal of the season. Suevo’s goal was set up by junior forward J.T. Noone, who tallied his 13th assist on the season, increasing his school record.

In the overtime period, the Owls came out with intensity, as junior midfielder Francois Sagna recorded the first and final shot of the period for the Owls.

“We had a great opportunity in overtime to win it,” coach David MacWilliams said. However, the “shot was directly at the keeper. If he hits it left or right, we probably win the game.”

A Dayton corner kick led to an early scoring opportunity, as a header was stopped by the Owls’ goalie. However, later, on the following corner, Dayton’s Zach Weiss would find Florian DeCamps for the game-winning goal and his second of the day.

“I’m happy with the efforts but not happy with the end result,” MacWilliams said. “We wanted to and believed we could make the NCAA Tournament this year. It was a great accomplishment, but we tried to set the bar and standards higher.”

The Owls did this despite missing some starters.

Junior midfielder Matt Chevrollier and sophomore defenseman Brant Hovington were the starters who didn’t play in the contest, as Chevrollier was serving a one-game suspension and Hovington was out with an injury.

“I don’t think we played as well [as we could have],” MacWilliams said. “I think it was tough. We were missing two starters.”

Temple then lost a third player just seven minutes into the game. Sophomore defenseman Chas Chupein went down with a broken leg. Chupein was by the sideline when he was hit from behind.
MacWilliams called the play dirty and believed the play “should have been a red card, but [the referee] only gave a yellow card.”

The Owls, despite missing those aforementioned starters, still had a competitive first half, as they matched the Flyers in shots with eight. However, for Dayton, one of those shots went past Owls goalkeeper Bret Mollon.

“We knew they were a very big team,” MacWilliams said. “We knew we couldn’t give up a lot of restarts or corner kicks. It would be an issue for us.”

On a corner kick in the 24th minute, the Flyers’ Simeon Zapryanov passed toward the net, and DeCamps headed his eighth goal of the season to put Dayton ahead 1-0.

Even though the Cherry and White lost in the playoffs, the team had one of its best seasons in several years.

MacWilliams said he was pleased with how the season went. One of the reasons he believed the team did well this year was because it was able to find the back of the net twice as much as the previous year.

The Owls finished second in the A-10, an accomplishment that had not been done since 1990. To go along with the second-place finish, Temple posted its most wins since 2004, with 10.

“We are motivated for next year,” MacWilliams said. “We want to take it even further than we did this past year.”

Nick Hollenstein can be reached at n.hollenstein@temple.edu.