Dayton Women’s Basketball Gut Out Gritty Battle in Win Over Fordham
(Photo via @daytonwbb Instagram)
TJ Thompson | Sports Editor
Winning isn’t always pretty; sometimes, a mini-scuffle is necessary to push a team over the edge. The University of Dayton Flyers women’s basketball team (15-12, 9-7) needed just that to best the Fordham Rams (14-13, 8-8) at UD Arena Saturday afternoon 62-57. The Flyers bench was huge this game, scoring 28 points. Junior guard Nayo Lear (4.1 ppg) had a team-leading 11 points. Freshman Molly O’Riordan (3.1 ppg) scored nine points for the Flyers.
“I think this game was about what the bench was going to bring, and that’s something I’ve been on my team about late in the season,” Dayton Head Coach Tamika Williams-Jeter said. Dayton’s leading scorer, Ivy Wolf (15.9 ppg), only scored nine for the Flyers today, allowing players like Lear and O’Riordan to step up. Williams-Jeter said that the beginning of the game was all Lear, and O’Riordan helped bridge the gap with a huge three and second-chance layup to set the Flyers up for victory.
The game started as a sloppy back-and-forth matchup, but the Flyers set in after the five-minute media timeout and went on a 14-4 run to end the quarter. The Flyers forced five turnovers in the first quarter, allowing them to grow their lead to 10 heading into the second quarter. Lear was still on her tear coming out of the break, scoring a coast-to-coast layup and pushing the Flyer lead to 12. The Rams wouldn’t go away quietly, putting together a 6-0 run and shrinking the Flyer lead to four. Dayton had an over three-minute scoring drought, and a Chaé Harris (9.2 ppg) offensive rebound and layup had the Rams within two points. O’Riordan gave the Flyers the spark they needed with a layup and a three-pointer to give UD some cushion at the half with an eight-point lead.
Williams-Jeter was pleased with it but challenged her team to have a killer mentality, and when you have a lead, don’t become satisfied. “I went off on them. Like, when are we, when are you going to stop being complacent with just being ahead a little bit,” said Williams-Jeter, “When you have a team down 18, it’s over, like, I’m not letting you come back.”
The third quarter was all Fordham senior Taya Davis (7.8 ppg). She had seven of her team-leading 20 points in the period off of a couple of acrobatic layups and free throws, having the Rams down just two heading into the final period. The Flyers were very sloppy in the third, scoring just 10 points and shooting 3-13 from the field while also committing eight turnovers. The Flyers had only five turnovers at the half and ended the game with 17, almost half of their total turnovers occurred in the third quarter. Williams-Jeter said her goal for her team is 13 to 15 turnovers a game and pointed to the number of illegal screens as the reason for the influx in turnovers.
The fourth quarter started with two Flyer layups from O’Riordan and graduate student Rikki Harris (6.5 ppg) and a Rams three to keep the Flyer lead at three. A ball then came off the rim and toward junior guard Shantavia Dawkins (2.5 ppg) and a Fordham player, causing a tie-up that would spill into the bench and cause a scuffle between the Flyers and the Rams. NCAA rules state that if a player leaves the bench area during a fight, they are disqualified, and that is exactly what happened to Dayton sophomore Eve Fiala (0.9 ppg). The referee’s discussion led to the decision to eject Fiala and assess an intentional foul on Dawkins. This gave the Rams four free-throw attempts and flipped the game on its head.
Williams-Jeter took this opportunity as a young coach to create a lesson for her players. She said they talk about this situation, but no one knows what will happen when it’s real. She said her players watching Fiala leave the floor instilled that rule in them. Whichever team responds better after a situation like that will most likely win the game, especially in a game as close and physical as this one, and Williams-Jeter knows that.
“We have to respond with toughness and grit, and it might be some elbows… You might just have to put Vaseline on your face and put black lines under your eyes, but we have to respond and not retaliate,” said Williams-Jeter, “I think also where I go, they go. So, they saw that I was calm, and everybody’s heart rate comes down.”
The Flyers responded well with a graduate student Nicole Stephens (6.5 ppg) three and a senior Shannon Wheeler (3.7 ppg) steal and assist to Wolf for an easy layup, giving the Flyers a seven-point lead that they would ride to the end of the game. This is the Flyers’ first time beating Fordham under coach Williams-Jeter. They are a tough team to beat because their main goal is to make the game sloppy and physical with their opponent. This recipe allowed them to hand first place Richmond, their only A-10 loss in January.
This was the breast cancer awareness and Play4Kay game, and during the pregame festivities, the Flyers honored cancer survivors by holding cards during the national anthem with names of loved ones who were affected by cancer. The starters were also accompanied by cancer survivors during introductions. Both UD and Fordham wore pink warmup shirts and sported pink gear during the game.
The Flyers and Rams came into this game tied in the A-10, and the Flyers now sit ahead of them at seventh place in the conference. The Flyers have two games remaining until the A-10 tournament. They face off against Saint Joseph’s (20-6, 11-4) on senior night, Feb. 26, in their final game at UD arena this year. Then they close the season in New York against St. Bonaventure (6-21, 2-14).