AMHERST — The UMass women’s basketball team was looking to upset Dayton to jumpstart its stretch run.
But the Flyers weren’t looking past the Minutewomen.
UMass struggled to contain Dayton in a 78-49 loss, Wednesday at the Mullins Center.
From the very first possession, Dayton’s Lauren Cannatelli was running the baseline behind UMass’ 3-2 zone to get open looks from the corner. The Minutewomen didn’t have an answer for Cannatelli, who had 26 points, including six 3-pointers on 15 attempts.
The Flyers (19-4, 12-0 Atlantic 10) also outplayed UMass (11-13, 3-8) inside. Dayton center Alex Harris had 16 points and 12 rebounds, while JaVonna Layfield finished with 12 points and 17 boards.
“There’s a reason why they’re the number one team in our conference,” UMass head coach Tory Verdi said. “They’re bigger than us. They’re stronger than us. They’re better at every single position.”
The Minutewomen struggled to contest 3-point shots against the Flyers, who shot 10 of 25 from deep. Mixing defenses, like Verdi did against La Salle Sunday, didn’t help.
“We did go man and we played man the majority of the second half,” Verdi said. “Regardless of what we did defensively, whether in our zone or in man, we’ve got to play really, really hard, and I don’t think we did a very good job there. We weren’t consistent at all.”
UMass freshman guard Bre Hampton-Bey finished with 14 points and eight rebounds. Hailey Leidel had 11 points. Maggie Mulligan added nine points and 14 rebounds.
The Minutewomen travel to Fairfax, Virginia, to play George Mason (18-7, 7-4) on Sunday.