St. Joe’s women reach a new high in a blowout win over Dayton

St. Joseph’s keeps on winning, and the Hawks reached three milestones Wednesday in a 73-47 women’s basketball rout of Dayton at Hagan Arena.

St. Joseph’s Cindy Griffin became the third coach to earn 200 conference victories in the Atlantic 10. The win also marked the best start across 25 games in program history for the Hawks (23-2, 12-1 conference).

Junior guard Mackenzie Smith reached 1,000 career points when she sank a free throw in the first quarter. Smith finished with 12 points and became the 30th player in program history to 1,000.

» READ MORE: St. Joe’s coach Cindy Griffin doesn’t ‘know what more’ the Hawks can do for Top 25 consideration after statement win

“I’m not going to tell you that I thought we were going to be 23-2. That’s a really a tough thing to do,” Griffin said. “You want to continue to to win and put yourself in this position to win that regular season and then win the Atlantic 10, but listen, everything’s very fragile, you know, and we know that and we don’t take it for granted.”

St. Joe’s came out hot, taking an early lead against Dayton (10-15, 4-10) and building a 46-28 lead by halftime.

“Sometimes as a coach, you’re a little concerned about, you know, we came off a big win [against George Mason],” Griffin said. “And how would we respond with a little bit of rest? We came out the way that you would expect a team that’s 22-2 at the time to come out.”

Talya Brugler paced the Hawks with 20 points, followed by Laura Ziegler (19), Smith, and Chloe Welch (11). But Griffin said the team’s depth extended beyond just those four.

“I’m very happy with Emma [Boslet] and Julia [Nystrom], our two point guards that put up 11 points between the two of them.” Griffin said. “To me, I look at it like five guys [in] double figures because I count them as one based on minutes. So, you know, that just says that we’re very offensive. We’re hard to guard, we’ve got answers. We’re very balanced and one guy isn’t doing it.”

The Hawks held the Flyers to 47 points, making them the 14th opponent to fail to score more than 50 points against the Hawks this season. St. Joe’s has the fifth-best scoring defense in the country, holding opponents to 53.5 points per game.

After the win over George Mason last Thursday, the Hawks received eight votes in the USA Today coaches poll and four in the Associated Press poll, but they remain unranked.

“The only thing you can do is control what you can control, and that’s taking one game at a time for us,” Griffin said. “And focusing in on the next opponent and not getting too far ahead of ourselves. We know what our goals are. I think we have enough punch offensively and our defense is just getting better night in and night out. So we’re continuing to grow as a team.”