Wednesday night, Cannatelli could tell it was going to be a good night.
She beat Payne in four of the five games they played, offering a shrug and a “you have to let them win sometimes” chuckle.
“Being relaxed and seeing the ball go in translates into the game,” Cannatelli said. “It gives me confidence, but seeing the first one go in in a game gives me confidence for all the other shots I’m going to take.”
Cannatelli saw a lot go in, scoring 24 points on 8-of-12 shooting, including 6 of 9 from 3-point range, to lead the Flyers to a 66-47 win over Duquesne.
“Lauren was huge for us tonight,” coach Shauna Green said after UD remained atop the A-10 standings at 12-2 and improved to 18-8 overall. “She ran the point, she got us in the offense and she shot the ball when she was open. We thought she had been passing up good shots, but she didn’t tonight. She had a great overall game.”
Cannatelli was once again playing the point with starting point guard Jenna Burdette sidelined for the fourth straight game.
Dayton led 11-6 after the first quarter thanks to a banked-in 3 with :00.3 on the clock from Jayla Scaife and managed to nurse the lead to 19-8 on a basket by JaVonna Layfield before Cannatelli erupted.
Cannatelli buried three straight 3s and hit a mid-range jumper to make it 30-9 lead with 5:07 remaining in the half.
“Sometimes you just get in the zone,” Cannatelli said. “You don’t think too much because then you start second guessing yourself. You just see and take what’s open.”
Dayton led 36-21 at the break, but Duquesne (14-13, 7-7) opened the second half with a 7-0 run.
“All the things we talked about at half, we knew the first few minutes were really key and for some reason we came out flat,” Green said. “We weren’t playing hard enough, and I told them that and after that we were fine again.”
Layfield scored five of Dayton’s first seven points out of the timeout to push the lead to 43-31 and Duquesne never got the lead under double digits again.
Layfield and Austria each finished with nine for the Flyers with Layfield also grabbing nine rebounds to go with 11 boards from Alex Harris.
Dayton out-rebounded Duquesne 48-31.
“That’s what we preach is defend, rebound and run,” Green said. “We got some 3s early and that really fueled us more on the defensive end.”
Dayton plays at Fordham on Sunday before closing out the regular season Wednesday against second place St. Louis (21-6, 11-3).
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