College Football: Flyers drop season-ending heartbreaker to Valpo

The Dayton Flyers ended a disappointing season Saturday with a heartbreaking 8-7 defeat to Valparaiso in the rain and wind at Brown Field.

Adam Trautman caught a 30-yard touchdown pass from Alex Jeske with 13:54 remaining for the game’s first score.

It stayed 7-0 until the final minutes when Valparaiso scored on a 1-yard run by Jarrett Morgan, who then threw a jump pass to Ryan Clarke for the game-winning two-point conversion.

Rain began at kickoff and led to a sloppy game with the teams combining for six fumbles.

UD, which had a three-game win streak snapped, finished 5-6 overall, 4-4 in the Pioneer Football League.

A fourth straight victory would have given the Flyers their 40th winning season in the last 41.

They instead finished with their first losing season since 2006 — and watched Valparaiso secure its first winning season since 2003.

Dayton had won 24 of 26 previous meetings with Valpo, losing only in 2000 and 2003. Valpo ended a 13-game losing streak to the Flyers, whose 37-21 win at Welcome Stadium last year had been the closest matchup in the series since 2003.

UD’s touchdown extended its streak of not being shut out to 465 straight games, the best such active string in all of college football. The last team to shut out the Flyers was Marshall, 9-0, on Oct. 16, 1976.

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