Lehigh at Dayton
December 05, 2009
Dayton has spent much of the early season away from UD Arena, but now they are happy to be playing five of their next six games at home, starting with todays game versus Lehigh.
The Flyers played one of their most complete games of the season while playing with their most complete lineup of the season as senior Rob Lowery returned to action en route to a 89-71 win.
Dayton started off slow on offense but strong on defense, keeping Lehigh to single digit points for much of the first half.
Dayton was unable to shake the Mountain Hawks for most of the first half. With 2:40 left the score was 30-24 Dayton, and the Flyers went on a 11-2 run to close the half out with a 41-26 advantage.
The basketball was secondary in the first half however, as the crowd awaited Lowery's much-anticipated entry into the game. With 6:52 left in the game the senior came into the game to a raucous applause from the Flyer faithful with the score just 19-8 Dayton. Both teams were able to crank up the offense after that point, including Lowery. The guard was able to sink the first shot he took, a 3-pointer. He later helped bring the house down with an alley-oop to Chris Wright which he threw from beyond half court.
The second half started with Lehigh looking to get back in the game as they scored a couple easy baskets, but their defense was not able to do the job. The Mountain Hawks never brought their deficit below 13 points.
The story of the second half was the aggressive play from the Dayton frontcourt. Devin Searcy played his best game of the season, scoring 13 points, 10 coming in the second half. Kurt Huelsman continued his string of good games, especially in his passing from the post. Huelsman finished with 5 points and 3 assists.
Lowery came into the game and energized the offense again int he second half, hitting a tough 3-pointer as the shot clock expired and then following it up with a long pass to Marcus Johnson who then found Luke Fabrizius for a 3 of his own to push the Flyers' advantage to 27 points at 81-54.
Lowery hit another driving jumper before leaving the game to finish with eight points.
Dayton coasted into the finish, giving some playing time to some of its younger players including Matt Kavanaugh and Josh Benson.
It was a total team effort for Dayton, who had no one score 20 points despite the high final score.
Chris Johnson continues to be invaluable to Dayton with his scoring and rebounding ability, finishing with 13 points and seven rebounds. Chris Wright delivered a double-double with 16 points and 10 boards.
For the first time this year the Flyers had the luxury of clearing the bench as Pete Zesterman, Logan Nourse, Dan Fox and Luke Hendrick saw their first action of the season.
For perhaps the first time this year, Dayton looked like a top-25 team as they improved to 5-2. The 71 points they gave up were a bit high, but many of them came in garbage time when the game had already been decided.
Next Dayton travels to Virginia to take on a tough mid-major team at George Mason.
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