Jan. 5, 2010

Final Stats

DAYTON, Ohio -- A shooting percentage of over 50 percent helped Dayton post an 84-54 victory over the Navy women's basketball team Tuesday night at UD Arena in Dayton, Ohio. The Flyers, who have received votes in the national poll for eight consecutive weeks, improved to 12-3 on the year with the win, while the loss dropped Navy's record to 8-7 on the season.

"I don't think we played all that poorly, but Dayton played really well tonight," said Navy head coach Stefanie Pemper. "Dayton is a very good team that is deep, tall and athletic with versatile players. We know what we have to do in order to play effectively, but even if we did that I'm not sure if that would have been enough tonight considering the team we were facing and how they played. We feel they would win the Patriot League if they were in it."

The Flyers slowly put some distance between themselves and the Mids in the early part of the game. Dayton held a 12-10 lead over Navy before the Flyers increased their advantage to double figures for the first time at 20-10. Navy promptly whittled the margin down to four points following back-to-back three-point field goals from Kristin Bowen (Sr., Monroeville, N.J.) that made the score 20-16. However, Dayton tallied the ensuing eight points to go back in front by the score of 28-16 before heading into the locker rooms at the half holding a 42-26 lead.

Dayton then connected on four of its first six shots from the floor at the start of the second half to quickly build a 51-28 lead over Navy. The Flyers would hold a lead of at least 20 points for all but one minute of the remainder of the game.

After shooting 47.1 percent from the floor in the first half, Dayton connected on 56.3 percent of its shots in the second half. While its offense finished the game shooting 51.5 percent, its defense held Navy to 37.5 percent shooting from the field in the game including an 8-of-32 effort (25.0%) from three-point range. The Flyers also held a 46-30 advantage over the Mids on the glass in the contest.

Navy was led in scoring by team captain K.C. Gordon (Sr., Vienna, Va.), who finished the game with 15 points and seven boards.

"K.C. is feeling great out there," said Pemper. "She is having an impact for us in many different ways and she likes that. She feels very good about her game right now. She showed tremendous pride out there tonight and played a complete game."

In addition to Gordon, Bowen finished the game with 10 points while Angela Myers (Jr., San Antonio, Texas) tallied eight points, four assists and four steals."

Leading all players in scoring in the game was Dayton's De'Sarae Chambers, who scored 16 points for the Flyers.

Navy, which has posted its first winning non-conference record in four years, will open its Patriot League season Friday night when the Mids play host to Bucknell in a 7 p.m. game in Alumni Hall.

"We ended the non-conference portion of our season with a pair of really tough games in Harvard and Dayton," said Pemper. "Those were two good tests for us heading into conference play. We have learned a lot about ourselves and our capabilities since the start of the year. We are confident in what we can do well."