Duquesne M Soccer Earns Historic A10 Victory

The Duquesne Men’s Soccer postgame circle was far larger than normal with several alumni included and head coach Chase Brooks kept the message simple before allowing himself to enjoy the moment on a rainy Rooney Field.

“Nights like tonight are why we do it,” Brooks stated.

For the first time in almost exactly 20 years, Duquesne bested Dayton 3-1 moving up to third place in the Atlantic 10 as a result of Saturday’s victory.

Brooks explained that Duquesne had a game plan coming in and if it stuck to principles getting a result was possible. Even he admitted how much fun the night was overall.

“We’ve mentioned the 20 years and it’s also a big game for Chase as well, he came from Dayton, so he definitely wanted it as well,” senior captain Jaxon Ervin explained. “It was a great team effort and we’re really excited that it ended up on alumni and have their energy.”

Here are three takeaways from an emotional victory.

1. Jaxon Ervin did a dance and commented if he scored, he would break it out. Cody Da had a conversation with Chase Brooks about a couple of things to see coming into this game and beyond.

Both would wind up responsible for Duquesne’s three goals.

A couple of minutes after the opening kick, Mother Nature opened up hours earlier than anticipated and both teams had to get used to consistently changing weather conditions.

Dayton struck in the 24th minute, but immediately captain Ashwin Menon told the team “next play”, a call several on the team echoed.

“It’s a 90-minute game for a reason,” explained Ervin. “To have the team have one brain on the field, you saw it was next play. 1-0 it doesn’t matter. They score three, we’ll score four.  That’s our mentality and we’ll keep that throughout the season.”

In the 36th minute, Ervin found Chris Philibin and the extra pass found Da, who converted on an open low-left corner. After Da scored, he celebrated by diving towards the right corner flag.

Less than two minutes later, Ervin scored when Da found him and indeed true to form, the celebration came with the former joined by several of his teammates. It was Ervin’s first goal of the season.

Da was not done as he got a second just before the 67th minute. As was the case with his first goal of the season he did a flip and ran over to the alumni.

“It’s a great confidence builder going into the next few days knowing that when our team is flying, we can compete with absolutely anybody,” he remarked. “It’s amazing to get one and to get another makes it that much better.”

2. There were many standouts in this game, but a critical piece was Dan Banks’s 36 minutes coming off the bench, a season high. Banks started in the second half and was making his presence felt.

His effort contributed to Da’s second goal, and he nearly recorded one himself.

“Banksy is a perfect example of a guy who came in with ability but maybe wasn’t quite ready yet and stuck to it, understood what we were trying to do and believed in the process,” Brooks analyzed. “I think you are going to see more from him for the rest of his career. I think you are seeing that with a few guys, but it was really nice for Banksy tonight.

3. Duquesne’s temperature right now is at a high point on the season. The result during the previous weekend at George Mason gave Duquesne a much-needed boosts after losing in competitive road contests at West Virginia and Saint Louis and that carried over to games.

The adage often is that you will play in competition how you practice and in the week between contests, the Dukes proved exactly that. There was an excitement to practice and be present, which is not always the case at this time of the season.

All told, there is a good amount of confidence heading into Tuesday’s derby with Pitt.

“There’s a lot of belief in this group and nights like tonight, the George Mason game show that,” Brooks offered. “Battling when we did with West Virginia and SLU they are two excellent teams as well. We knew this was going to be the toughest stretch of the season and proud of the guys and alums for showing up giving us everything they had. There is a good vibe within the group right now and obviously you want to show up, continue to play hard and execute to the best of their abilities.”

A10 STANDINGS

VIDEOS

Zac Weiss