Women’s basketball: Dayton improves to 10-0 in A-10 with rout of Richmond

Dayton’s dominance allowed coach Shauna Green to rest the starters in the second half after the lead ballooned to 24 points in the third quarter.

“I was really happy with our overall performance,” Green said. “I thought we gave up too many points in the first quarter with 16, and in the second quarter, we tightened up. The third quarter was great. Then we let them go on that run. We were trying to get some of our young guys experience.”

Dayton (11-1, 10-0) remains in first place by itself. It leads Fordham (11-3, 8-2), the only A-10 team to beat Dayton last season, by two games. Richmond (10-5, 7-3) fell three games out of first.

A-10 preseason favorite Virginia Commonwealth (9-8, 7-3) travels to Dayton for a noon game on Sunday after playing in St. Louis. That game will be televised on ESPNU. VCU lost 66-50 at Saint Louis (8-3, 6-3) on Friday.

Dayton and VCU last played in the A-10 tournament championship game last season. The Flyers won 52-48 after beating VCU 72-67 in the regular season. Both games took place at UD Arena.

“It’s going to be a battle,” Green said. “They’re a defensive team. It’s always close when we play each other. We’ve got to be focused.”

Against Richmond, Dayton never trailed, but the game was tied late in the first quarter, and it was a one-point game early in the second quarter.

Dayton’s decisive run started with a layup by Araion Bradshaw at the 7:17 mark and continued with a basket by Mariah Perez and then five straight points by Maliya Perry. Jenna Giacone extended Dayton’s lead to 34-22 on a jump shot with 3:43 to play in the half.

Dayton was never threatened after that point. Ten players scored at least three points for Dayton. Erin Whalen led the team with 13 points.

Perez had 10 points and 16 rebounds, including 11 offensive rebounds.

“She’s just been continuing to learn every game,” Green said, “and she stepped up. This is what we expect from her and what I know she’s capable of doing. I’m glad she put it into action tonight.”

Dayton out-rebounded Richmond 51-23, and 27 offensive rebounds led to 28 second-chance points.

“That’s huge for us,” Green said. “We won all three of our battles. The battle of the paint. The battle of turnovers. We ended up only having 11, which is good for us. And we won the battle of the boards. I attribute that to sticking to our principles of what Dayton basketball is about and not trying to do too much. When we keep things simple and do the simple things really well, we usually end up where we want to be when the buzzer sounds.”