Win streak has UD women grooving now

The Dayton Flyers women’s basketball team will enter the second week of February without a loss in the new year. That’s not such a rare occurrence. Two years ago, UD won 16 straight games, starting 15-0 in the Atlantic 10 Conference before losing its regular-season finale at Saint Louis.

Dayton extended its current winning streak to 11 games Wednesday, winning 55-49 at Davidson to improve to 16-7 and 9-0 in the A-10. The Flyers were 5-7 on Dec. 20 after their seventh loss in 10 games. That stretch included games against three teams now ranked in the top 11 — No. 1 South Carolina, No. 4 Connecticut and No. 11 Gonzaga — plus Central Michigan, which ranks 18th in the RPI.

“Through those bumps and some of that adversity, we grew into what we are now and learned from some of those failures,” Dayton coach Shauna Green said. “We have a long road ahead of us. There’s a lot of basketball to be played. But I really think we are starting to find our groove.”

Dayton overcame an eightpoint deficit early in the third quarter in its latest victory. Dayton outscored Davidson 17-3 in the last 6:44 of the third quarter to take a 46-39 lead and pushed the lead into double digits early in the fourth quarter.

Jayla Scaife led the Flyers with 25 points. Erin Whalen added 10. Shakeela Fowler scored nine.

“I didn’t like how we started,” Green said. ‘I didn’t like all the fouls called, but I really liked all our grit and toughness we showed. That third quarter was great. Our defense was great for 40 minutes. Our defense has been great. We haven’t had a team score over 60 points since December. We’re really locked in defensively. We’re up and down defensively.”