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PHILADELPHIA – Dayton hit a pair of home runs and spoiled Senior Day at Hank DeVincent Field with a 5-2 victory over La Salle on Saturday afternoon. The Flyers clinched a share of the regular season Atlantic 10 Championship with the win.
 
Seniors Brendan Norton and Marc Schoch each had two hits for La Salle in their final collegiate games.
 
Head coach Mike Lake started nine seniors and a junior to celebrate Senior Day and seven had at least one hit. The Class of 2012 owns the second most wins by a four-year class and led the Explorers to two Atlantic 10 Tournament appearances.
 
Senior Kevin Christy suffered the loss in his final career outing after allowing five earned runs in 7.1 innings.
 
Nevertheless, the right-hander completed an outstanding career that leaves him as the leader in strikeouts in a career at La Salle and in the top 10 in five other categories in program history (ERA, appearances, starts, innings pitched, and wins).
 
His 85 strikeouts this season are third on the single season list and his 88.1 innings are tied for seventh.
 
The staff, under pitching coach John Duffy, led the Atlantic 10 in conference games with a 3.07 ERA. The Explorers led the A-10 in all games in strikeouts as well and the 4.00 overall ERA was the lowest since the turn of the century.
 
Dayton (28-28, 17-7 A-10) led off the second with a pair of bloop singles and took a 2-0 lead on RBI singles by Robby Sunderman and Brian Blasik. Josh Jeffery hit a two-run homer in the fourth to make it 4-0, Flyers.
 
La Salle (20-33, 7-17 A-10) came back to score single runs in the fourth and fifth innings. Schoch drove in senior Jeff Flax, who had singled, with a two-out single up the middle in the fourth. One inning later, senior Jon Gyles led off with a single and scored on junior Dan Klem's infield pop-up that fell between a trio of Flyers.
 
Blasik's solo homer in the seventh gave UD a 5-2 lead and completed the scoring.
 
Parker Schrage threw a complete-game and allowed two runs for the victory.
 
In addition to Christy, Flax, Gyles, Norton and Schoch, seniors Marshall Garcia, Adam Kammler, Tony Negrin and Eric Van Wyk were honored in a pre-game ceremony.
 
Flax finishes his career sixth on the all-time hit list at La Salle and the career leader in games played and started, breaking current assistant coach Brian Meagher's mark.
 
Gyles ended his career seventh on the all-time doubles list with 39, while Norton set the program record for walks in a season this year with 55.
 
Schoch finishes his career fifth on the all-time doubles list with 45. Van Wyk finished third all-time in innings pitched and fifth in wins. Negrin ended his career as a career .330 hitter and Kammler is a recent Academic All-District selection.
 
Garcia made a valuable impact after transferring from California and flashed his glove on Saturday on several occasions.
 
In addition, fifth-year seniors Zach Feierstein and Caolan Ronan, who graduated last spring, played their final games. Ronan threw a scoreless ninth on Saturday.
 
All-conference and all-Philadelphia Big 5 announcements will be forthcoming in the next few weeks.