The Dayton Flyers women's basketball team hits the road Saturday night for its first conference game of the season. After a promising start to the year, the team had two recent losses that pushed its record to 11-3 overall.

Two wins over nationally ranked opponents brought UD as high as No. 20 in the polls back in December, but a road loss to Toledo pushed the Flyers out of the rankings. The team also lost to Vermont during winter break before finishing its non-conference schedule by dominating Navy Tuesday.

Atlantic 10 Conference coaches projected Dayton to finish third in the conference this season, the highest ever preseason honor for the Flyers. The team received the recognition despite being one of the youngest squads in the nation.

Talking about the season, coach Jim Jabir praised senior Kendell Ross.

"Kendell is probably mentally the toughest player on the team and she is very important to us because of her determination and toughness," he said.

Her improved play is just one of the many reasons it has been an all-around impressive season for the women's basketball team.

"I think this year we are more of a complete team all around," sophomore forward Justine Raterman said. "We have a lot more scoring options and everyone is playing with a lot of confidence."

Leading the team in scoring for the second season in a row, Raterman averages 12.9 points and 6.4 rebounds per contest. "I think that as we progress in the season we are just starting to learn how good we can be," she said.

That intensity and toughness has showed up in the rebounding column where the Flyers are out rebounding their opponents by 8.5 boards per game. That number is best in the A-10 and 20th in the nation.

Jabir said the size of his guards has been a big mismatch for opposing teams so far. Sophomore point guard Patrice Lalor is the only starter under six-feet tall while UD also brings two more big weapons off the bench in freshman Kari Daugherty and redshirt freshman Elle Queen.

After their contest against George Washington this weekend, the Flyers get a week off before hosting St. Bonaventure. They will then travel to St. Joseph's before taking on Richmond at UD Arena and continuing the back-and-forth traveling on the road against upstart Duquesne.

"The league is really tough this year and there are some great teams that are playing very, very well," Jabir said. "Every game is going to be tough for us and we are going to have to be mentally tough in order to compete."

In Atlantic 10 women's basketball, rival Xavier is always a big part of the discussion. Currently ranked No. 15 in the nation in the AP poll, Xavier has made the tournament each of the past three years while racking up five straight seasons of 20-plus victories.

Raterman noted that although Xavier is already Dayton's archrival in all athletic events; their back-and-forth victories last season only added to the fire. The Musketeers first escaped UD Arena with a narrow two-point victory back in January en route to the top seed in the conference tournament.

Then, making post-season play as the eighth team in the conference, the Flyers upset their nationally ranked rival 63-60 in the quarterfinals of the Atlantic 10 Tournament. It was the first win over a ranked team in over seven years for the Dayton program as well as just the third appearance in the conference semifinals in school history.

Predicted to win the conference again this year, Xavier is the team to beat. Also standing tall are early opponents Duquesne, Richmond and St. Bonaventure, all with double-digit wins.

The tough non-conference schedule is now over, but the real season is just about to get under way. The team is happy with the early results and confident they can keep the momentum going into A-10 play.

"We all really believed in ourselves and this was important," Raterman said. "We really shocked a lot of people around the country, but the 15 of us and our coaches all knew we had the ability."