Dayton Spectator Sports

Week four at the Weekly Update!  That seems like a milestone for me that I should probably write down somewhere.  Hope a couple of you went out and saw a game this last weekend despite the insane heat again.  Here we go.

Ouch, The Dragons had a rough weekend away from home against the Lansing Lugnuts.  They fought some hard games but alas were swept in the series.  This will make the third time this year that the Dragons have lost every game in a series against Lansing.  The only time they have been successful was actually their very first series of the year in which they swept Lansing.  The first game of the series on Friday was a 7-6 loss.  I’ve mentioned the last three weeks that Dayton’s losses frequently have been very close, usually coming by one run which can be difficult for a struggling team.  Out of the Dragon’s last 9 losses including this weekend, 6 of them have been by one run, one was by two and the other was by 4 back against Beloit earlier this month.  Of  course the other one was the Saturday game which was lost 4-1.  That’s not to say there wasn’t a fight, in fact, Friday and Sunday’s (a 5-4 loss) games were both taken into extra inning, and both time the Dragons fell short in the 11th.  I’ll spare you any of the details this week unless you’d like to go read the game wrap ups, but let’s just say there isn’t a lot of great news there right now.

The Dragons have got to show up against Fort Wayne early this week.  They just finished a series with them, all three games were decided by one run (1 win 2 losses) and that little bit of extra effort needs to show here or else this downward spiral might continue.  On the plus side, this weekend during City Folk, they will be home against the Great Lakes Loons again.  Despite the Loon’s great away win record, Dayton has had great luck against them all year.  Let’s hope they can keep it up.

UPDATE: 6/30/2010 Well apparently the Gems press conference was cancelled, stating “unforseen circumstances” as the cause. Your guess is as good as mine as to what this means. It could be someone couldn’t make it today, or it could mean something really big has happened, but we’ll let you know if anything comes up.

Hey guess what?  New head coach to be announced this Wednesday, June 30th.  Bout darn time right?  Check back here for an update on that on Wednesday.  There is also some interesting news involving an 18th team to the new CHL this year.  I mentioned a few weeks ago that two IHL teams would not be making the transfer over as a result of various problems, (Port Huron Icehawks and the Muskegon Lumberjacks)  As it turns out the single -A hockey team in Evansville has purchased the team and transferred them play for their own Icemen.  This means that Evansville will now be playing in the IHL, from the AAHL (getting confused yet?) and we have already mentioned that the IHL and CHL will be tenatively merging before the start of next season SO..  Muskegon will be with the new league in a sense, combine… sort of…, with the already existing Evansville Icemen.

Remember to check back, hopefully we’ll have some news on the Gems’ new coach

The Dayton Dutch Lions managed another loss-less week which included a tie against the Cincinnati Kings and a win against League leader, the Chicago Fire.  The only thing keeping The Lions out of first place right now is the amount of ties they have had.  Although this is definitely better than having a bunch of losses, you can see the main difference between the Fire and the Lions are the Fire’s two extra wins.  Even though they actually have 3 losses to the Lion’s 1, those wins make all the difference in the long run.  Still, the win against Chicago has put Dayton back within two points of the lead, which on the flip side makes having only 1 loss so important.

The Lions were in a prime position to have the lead in the League this week as a matter of fact, as they played a commanding game against Cincinnati.  They took a lead of 2-0 for the majority of the game, and looked as if win was inevitable but Cincinnati wasn’t going to go down without a fight and managed a score at the 70th minute of the game. Though a few free kicks were given to the Lions over the next few minutes, they could not capitalize on them and a potential 3-1 win went belly up as the Kings scored a second time in the 86th minute of the game.  Instead of going home with 3 points (which would put Dayton on top of Chicago this week by 1)  they had to settle for 1 point in a tie.  It should be noted that an estimated 75% of the fans in Cincinnati ths weekend were Dutch Lions fans.

The great victory this week was against the Chicago Fire.  It was a stunted first half however, as the score remained 0-0 after 45.  But shortly after the teams entered the field again, a cross kick from Bas Ent to Geert den Ouden would fly right past the King’s keeper to make it a 1-0 game after 55 minutes.  Defense prevailed for a while but as the 89th minute approached, and the game was winding down, den Ouden was there again, this time with the set up for George Davis IV, scoring another goal as regulation came to an end.  With 5 minutes of stopage time however the Chicago Fire managed to get a good shot off to make the ending result 2-1, and handing the Lions a great victory.  The next game up is against the Michigan Bucks on July 3rd.  I probably won’t be there as downtown will be calling my name, but best of luck to the Lions, another win will keep them in contention for the playoffs.

Would you believe there isn’t any new postings for the Raiders this week?  I had mentioned two weeks ago that former Wright State Pitcher Alex Kaminsky had signed with the Cleveland Indians earlier this year.  In his first game with the Indian’s Single-A affiliate, the Mahoning Valley Scrappers, he threw 5 shutout innings, striking out  4, and won his professional debut game.  Congratulations!

Also it should be noted that Jon Durket signed with the Lake Erie Crushers of the Independent Frontier League as the 3rd free agent this year to enter into professional baseball.  This makes 5 Raiders that have joined the professional ranks this year, the most of any team Wright State has produced, best of luck to all of you guys out there.

Some good news for Flyers women basketball, as they have been awarded a grant for program funding.  This will hopefully build on a lot of momentum that Flyer’s women’s basketball has had over the last year or so.  The intention of the grant is to help increase awareness of the team and the games they play through various outlets and hopefully increase attendance at games.  People should know about this women’s team;  last year The Flyers won their first ever top 10 game with a victory over Michigan State, appeared in the AP and ESPN top 25 for the first time, held an average attendance of 3404 which was highest in the Atlantic 10, 34th highest in the country and if I might add, quite a bit better than some of Dayton’s professional team attendance from last year and this year, and finished last year’s season a staggering 25-8 which ties a modern-era record for most victories in a season.  Congratulations UD, that’s outstanding news.

That’s all for this week, I’m out!  Enjoy this weekend, City Folk is a blast, and with the new pavilion downtown, there isn’t any reason to not be there!