Lani White and the Hokies crushed Davidson on Friday in Florida. (Virginia Tech athletics)

FORT MYERS, Fla. — Virginia Tech crushed Davidson 79-50 in its first game of the Fort Myers Tip-Off on Friday.

“I thought we came out and really set the tone defensively,” Tech head coach Megan Duffy told Tech Sideline after the win. “Davidson’s a difficult team to guard because they’re constantly moving, they have a lot of international players that just have great footwork and can shoot the three, but kudos to our women who were ready to play right off the bat. I thought Matilda [Ekh] got off to a great start and then we just had great balance along the way.”

The Hokies (6-1) scored the game’s first nine points — seven of which came from Ekh, who finished with nine points on 4-of-5 shooting — and made the Wildcats (3-4) uncomfortable, forcing Davidson head coach Gayle Fulks to call timeout just 2:19 in.

After the Wildcats responded with a 6-0 run to make it 9-6, the Hokies pulled away for good. They ripped off a 14-0 run through the end of the quarter and Mackenzie Nelson’s 3-pointer to open the second period kept things going. They were up 26-6 at that point and rolling.

Throughout that stretch, they forced six straight misses and three turnovers from Davidson, who was just 2-of-13 from the field in the first and couldn’t recover.

“I think we just have really good chemistry defensively,” Tech forward Carys Baker said, “and I think we locked in this week on just in practice, knowing what they were going to run and how to guard it. I think also communicating on the court — we knew that it wasn’t going to be as loud as Cassell [Coliseum] so going in and being able to talk on the court and actually hear each other was also really helpful with our chemistry and just being able to switch when we needed to or just being able to read what was going on.”

Tech was on cruise control from there. The Wildcats regressed to the mean in the second quarter and shot 55 percent (6-of-11), but they couldn’t slow down the Hokies, who were 17-of-29 (59%) from the floor in the first 20 minutes.

Carleigh Wenzel looked like a quarterback in the first quarter after jumpstarting the big run with two full-court passes in transition to Baker and Nelson, who got behind the Davidson defense. Tech finished with a season-high 19 points in transition.

Carleigh Wenzel and Virginia Tech were impressive in transition against the Wildcats. (Virginia Tech athletics)

“They traditionally will get up and press the entire game, so we thought if we could handle it initially, we could get some fast-break points,” Duffy said. “We got a couple rim runs, a couple downhill attacks, which opened up some things.”

“A big emphasis for us is transition and me and Carleigh will sometimes warm up with each other, just having her throw those passes to me,” Baker said. “So it’s kind of nice that we finally got one to drop. But just getting in transition, that’s really important because if nothing’s falling in our offense, just getting out and running because we know we can outrun these teams, so being able to do that and have some easy buckets is really, really good for us.”

Tech scored 20 points in the paint in the first half and knocked down four of its six 3-point attempts. It played well with some players in foul trouble, too — Ekh, Wenzel and Samyha Suffren each had two personals at the break — and the lead gave Duffy some flexibility in her lineups.

It was a slower start for the Hokies in the second half. After leading 46-21 at intermission, they missed their first eight field goals out of the locker room. Rose Micheaux’s two free throws were the team’s only third-quarter points until Kayl Petersen caught a pass by the low block, pivoted and banked a hook shot in off the glass while getting fouled at the 5:13 mark, snapping the cold streak.

Outside of that third-quarter drought, the Hokies were efficient on both ends. They finished the game 28-of-57 (49.1%) while limiting the Wildcats to 17-of-55 (30.9%).

“I thought we were in a stance, we were ready to switch,” Duffy said of Tech’s defense. “I thought we took away some of their easy 3-point shots. … A big word for us leading into this game was discipline. I thought against Elon, we got out of our stances a little bit, we were kind of slapping down and hacking, and I thought we stressed that throughout the week of just walling up through their step-through moves. I thought our bodies around them just impacted some of their misses.”

Tech was balanced across the board. Ten different players scored, led by Micheaux, Baker and Petersen, who had 11 apiece. They all had huge efforts on the glass, too: nine rebounds from Micheaux, a career-high seven from Baker and a career-high six from Petersen.

Carys Baker and the Hokies were very balanced against Davidson — 10 different players scored. (Virginia Tech athletics)

Ekh finished with her aforementioned nine points while Lani White chipped in 10. Wenzel and Nelson each had seven points and four assists (and Wenzel had four rebounds and two steals too). Freshmen Leila Wells and Ramiya White got in on the action as well, posting five points each (and White grabbed a career-high eight boards). Suffren also added three points.

Tech’s comfortable cushion meant Duffy could rest some starters throughout the contest and keep them fresh ahead of Saturday against Michigan (7:30 p.m. ET, WSN) — a luxury considering the games on back-to-back days, and also something the Wolverines (6-1) weren’t able to do in their 68-58 win over Belmont, which was tied at 27 at halftime.

“We talk a lot about strength and numbers, and for a back-to-back game tournament, I’m happy we didn’t have to play huge minutes in the first one,” Duffy said. “So hopefully our legs will be ready to go because we play a really good Michigan team.”

It’s a familiar foe for Duffy, who worked for Michigan head coach Kim Barnes Arico in Ann Arbor (and at St. John’s before that). When the two programs met last in the 2017 WNIT, Duffy was on the Wolverines’ bench.

“I got to work with Coach Arico two different times, at St. John’s and and Michigan, so just a lot of respect for her,” Duffy said. “And then [Wolverines assistant] Justine Raterman was on my staff at Marquette for a while. It’s always good to see them, and then it’ll be fun to compete against them but they’ve got some young talent, they play really hard, there are some similarities from our program, meaning the charges, the loose balls, the win the battle on the boards.

“We’ll have two pretty equal teams with a great opportunity to win a championship.”

Box Score: Virginia Tech 79, Davidson 50