Women's Basketball Squeaks By Conference Rival Dayton, 46-45

Saturday, January 12

Washington, D.C.

12 p.m.

George Washington University

5-11 (2-1)

Dayton

7-7 (2-1)

Dayton

George Washington

1/12/2019 2:35:00 PM | Women's Basketball

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Colonials block two shots on final possession to secure win

WASHINGTON - While the DC region braced for a winter weather event forecasted to hit the area on Saturday night, the Charles E. Smith Center hosted an annual highlight event of the Atlantic 10 women's basketball schedule. George Washington and Dayton women's basketball have combined for nine of the 13 Atlantic 10 Championships won by current schools in the conference, and have claimed each of the last four between them (GW: 2015, 2016, 2018; Dayton: 2017). With Dayton tied atop the conference at 2-0 in conference play coming in, and GW fresh off its first road win of the conference season on Wednesday night, a GW win would mean deadlocking the respective teams' records at 2-1 in the early bid for conference supremacy in 2019.

Then the Colonials got what they asked for. In a thriller in Foggy Bottom, GW bit its collective nails through a final Dayton possession in which leading scorer Jayla Scaife drove hard to the basket, but was twice turned away from point blank range by Colonials' defenders. First it was first-year Maddie Loder then senior Kelsi Mahoney who denied Scaife, and when the ball found its way into Loder's hands at the buzzer, the Buff and Blue notched its first two-game win streak of the campaign.

It shouldn't be surprising that GW is playing its best ball after the start of the new year as this has become commonplace under third-year head coach Jennifer Rizzotti. The Colonials are now 29-12 from January through the end of the season under Rizzotti, as compared to 15-23 in November and December when the maestro tests her team against the nation's top teams to prepare for A-10 play. GW is now 29-11 against conference foes since the start of the 2016-17 season.

After trailing by as many as ten points, the home team earned its biggest come-from-behind victory of the year with a superlative defensive quarter in the fourth. A Chyna Latimer fast break lay-in with 6:58 to play in the contest cut the Dayton lead to 42-39, and after the Flyers' leading scorer Jayla Scaife sunk one of two free throws, it was Latimer again who trimmed the Flyers lead to two with a jumper.

An ensuing stop on the defensive end for GW gave Mei-Lyn Bautista the opportunity to give the Buff and Blue its first lead since it was 3-2 in the opening minutes of the contest, and she found the shooters' bounce on a three-point attempt and forced Dayton to call a time-out with 5:59 to play and GW leading, 44-43. A brief scoring drought was ended when Dayton's Julia Chandler gave Dayton the lead back with just under three minutes to play, before another Latimer jumper at the 2:03 mark put GW back up 46-45. Fitting for the hard-fought and chippy-at-times contest, no points were scored in the final two minutes of play, and just two shots found their mark in the final six minutes.

Scaife came to GW averaging 15.3 points per game and led Dayton with 14, though it took her 15 shots to get there. Lauren Cannatelli, who also boasted a double digit scoring average coming to DC at 12.2 pig was held to five points. Dayton connected on just 20-of-52 field goal attempts, including 2-of-13 in the decisive fourth quarter.

For GW, it was Neila Luma who took home team-high scoring honors with 13, while Latimer finished with a dozen, six of which came in the fourth quarter.

The Colonials will look for their first three-game winning streak since storming all the way through the 2018 Atlantic 10 Championship -- a trip that took them through regular season champion Dayton last season -- on Wednesday night at La Salle at 5 p.m. on ESPN+ in another doubleheader with the men's basketball team. Saturday's 12 p.m. start time gave way to a men's basketball game at 4 p.m..