Photos & Game Summary: Rams Fall Short in A-10 Championship

Official VCU Game Summary

Score: (RV) No. 1 VCU 1, No. 6 Dayton 2
Location: Richmond, Va. (Sports Backers Stadium)
Records: VCU 7-6-5 (5-1-2), Dayton 8-6-6 (3-1-4)

THE SHORT STORY: Despite getting off to a strong start with an early goal, VCU Men’s Soccer gave up its lead in the second half to fall in the Atlantic 10 Tournament Championship game on Sunday afternoon.

VCU will now wait and see if the NCAA grants them an at-large bid for qualification into the NCAA Tournament. The NCAA Selection show is set to run at 1 p.m., tomorrow Nov. 13 and it will be streamed on NCAA.com.

“It was a tough day at the office,” said Head Coach Dave Giffard. “Dayton are a quality and well coached team and so they certainly earned the victory, but our legs weren’t quite there the way they have been down the stretch.

“I think we’ve done enough to have our name called tomorrow but we’ve left it in the hands of the committee unfortunately. But I’m super proud of the fellas, they’ve had a great regular season and A-10 tourney, now we wait to see if we get the chance to make some noise in the NCAA tournament.”

PITCH SIDE

• Jonathan Kanagwa scored VCU’s lone goal, his fourth of the season
• Papa Toure assisted on Kanagwa’s goal, his first of the season
• VCU was surgical with their shot attempts attempting nine shots, six of those on goal.
• John Ermini made the start in goal, and making six saves
• Andrey Salmeron led VCU in shots with two and two on goal, with seven other Rams recording one shot each

HOW IT HAPPENED

• VCU began on the defensive end, protecting their goal and fending off an early Dayton shot that banged off the right post in the third minute
• The Rams got on the board in the 10th minute when Toure headed a shot that banged off the keeper and landed at the feet of a crashing Kanagwa who slotted home the goal to make it 1-0
• Salmeron was able to take a shot on goal in the 26th minute to wrap up the first half and at the break VCU held the lead 1-0
• VCU opened up the second half again on the defensive end, as Dayton got six shots off in the first fifteen minutes of the second half
• The Flyers scored their first goal when Kenji Mboma Dem was assisted by Manny Day in the 68th minute
• The two squads held neck and neck for the next twenty minutes before Dayton took the lead in the 88th minute on a goal by Hjalti Sigurdsson, assisted by Geni Kanyane and Manny Day
• Time then ran out on the Rams as their final push was shut down by Dayton as the Flyers wrapped up their tournament championship win

ATLANTIC 10 ALL-TOURNAMENT TEAM

Papa Toure (VCU)
Moussa Ndiaye (VCU)
Andrey Salmeron (VCU)
Jonathan Kanagwa (VCU)
Michael Rojas (UMASS)
Denis Krioutchenkov (DAVIDSON)
Logan Brown (DAYTON)
Manny Day (DAYTON)
Kenji Mboma Dem (DAYTON)
Hjalti Sigurdsson (DAYTON)
Dario Caetano (DAYTON)