PHILADELPHIA – The University of Dayton women’s basketball team overcame an 11-point halftime deficit to defeat La Salle 58-49 Wednesday night at Tom Gola Arena.
The Flyers outscored La Salle 36-16 in the second half to pull out the Atlantic 10 victory and improve to 17-6 overall, 9-2 in conference play. The Explorers drop to 12-14, 6-5 A-10.
Freshman Andrea Hoover tied her career high with 22 points and pulled down a career-high nine rebounds to pace UD. Senior Justine Raterman 20 points and equaled her career high with three blocked shots. Junior Olivia Applewhite contributed nine points for the Flyers.
Senior Elle Queen grabbed a career-high nine rebounds to help UD win the battle of the boards, 40-30. Queen also had a game-high six assists to equal her career high.
Dayton shot just 29.6 percent in the first half but came out blazing in the second stanza, knocking down 56.5 percent (13-of-23) of the shots it attempted.
UD turned the ball over a season-high 27 times.
Dayton, sparked by nine points from Hoover, led by as much as eight points, 14-6, with 11:30 to go in the first half. The Explorers used a 13-0 run to take a 19-14 lead with 8:10 left to play in the half.
Sam MacKay’s layup with 7:51 cut the lead to three and ended a nearly four-minute scoring drought.
La Salle held its biggest lead of the night at the half, 33-22.
Hoover and Raterman combined for 18 points in the first eight minutes of the second half. Hoover’s three with 11:55 left in the game, gave the Flyers their first lead since 9:08 of the first half.
There were two lead changes and two ties until UD finally regained the lead for good on a pair of Applewhite free throws at the 6:57 mark.
The Flyer defense held La Salle without a field goal for the last 9:04 of the game.
Dayton will return to UD Arena for a two-game homestand vs. Saint Louis (Sat., Feb. 18 at 2 p.m. – Senior Day) and a rematch with Xavier (Wed., Feb. 22 at 7 p.m.).
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