DAYTON, Ohio -- The top-seeded Dayton Flyers led for nearly 37 minutes and earned their 12th Atlantic 10 Championship semifinal berth in the last 13 seasons with its 79-68 Friday afternoon victory over ninth-seeded Richmond in the quarterfinals of the 2020 Atlantic 10 Women's Basketball Championship at UD Arena.
“I’m really happy with how we came out and our start, that’s the best we’ve played offensively in a long time,” Dayton coach Shauna Green said. “Overall we finished and it was good to see our offense get going a little bit.”
Dayton (23-8) was led by redshirt junior guard Erin Whalen’s 21 points on a career-high six made 3-point shots. Whalen was one of four Flyers to achieve double figures as she was joined by sophomore forward Kyla Whitehead who tied a career-high with 18 points and also grabbed nine rebounds. Atlantic 10 All-Conference First Team selection Jayla Scaife and senior guard Jenna Giacone each scored 11 points, with the former also grabbing nine rebounds.
As a team, Dayton out-rebounded Richmond by a 46-32 margin.
Dayton will play the winner of a quarterfinal matchup between fourth-seeded Saint Louis and fifth-seeded Massachusetts in Saturday's first semifinal. That semifinal will tip off at 11:00 am ET and be televised by CBS Sports Network.
Richmond (15-17) was led by All-Conference Third Team representative Jaide Hinds-Clarke’s 20 points before she fouled out in the fourth quarter. Freshman guard Angel Burgos set a career-high scoring 13 points in 18 minutes of play. Sophomore guard Kate Klimkiewicz also added 13 points.
Dayton got off to a fast start in the first quarter, scoring 33 points, its season high in a game’s opening 10 minutes with Whalen making all four of her 3-point shots, while teammate Shakeela Fowler contributed with five assists, reading Richmond’s defense while finding open Flyers. Dayton shot 61.9 percent from the field in the opening quarter.
“Our team does a really good job of finding us when we’re open, so that always helps,” said Whalen. “It is just making sure you are finding the hot hand and that’s a credit to my team for being able to find me and be able to help me kind of get my head on straight.”
Richmond started stringing possessions together on both ends of the court in the third quarter, with a 6-0 run and by earning multiple steals on the defensive end, cutting its deficit to 11 points.
Whitehead scored 14 of her points in the third quarter including two 3-point shots which were key baskets in allowing Dayton to regain control of the contest. Whitehead’s two threes nearly double her regular season output from deep of three.
“I see her in the gym after practice getting reps in, really working on her shot,” Green said. “I couldn’t be happier to see her hard work translate onto the floor and hit those two threes, because those were big-time shots that she hit when we were struggling.”
It was a defensive-oriented fourth quarter for both sides with Dayton not scoring its first basket of the frame until 2:28 remained in regulation. Though Richmond outscored Dayton in the second half, the deficit and all three leading scorers being in foul trouble were too much for the Spiders to overcome.