Nov. 25, 2008

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Dayton's "Flight Club" was in full force in Tuesday's win over Mercer at UD Arena.

Thunderous dunks from sophomore Chris Wright and junior Charles Little throughout the night energized the crowd of 12,074 as Dayton defeated the Bears 71-53 in second round action of the Chicago Invitational Challenge. UD improved to 4-0 on the season.

Wright led the Flyers with his first double-double of the year, recording game-highs of 16 points and 11 rebounds. Six of Wright's points came on high-flying slam dunks, and he also rejected three shots to tie a career high.

Wright lived up to his nickname of "Top Flyght" by getting the crowd going early with highlight-reel slams. He started the scoring with a follow dunk off a Marcus Johnson miss.

After a Johnson three-pointer, Wright received a half-court ally-oop pass from junior London Warren. Wright soared above the defenders to throw it down, making the score 7-0 at the 17:28 mark.

With 15:48 remaining, Little got in on the action with a rim-rattling two-handed dunk while driving the lane to put UD up 12-4.

The Flyers soon stretched their lead to 30-10 thanks to a 16-2 run midway through the half. Freshman Luke Fabrizius came off the bench to bury three shots from beyond the three-point arc during the run. Dayton made eight three-pointers in the first half of play.

The highlight of the stretch came at the 12:55 mark when Wright swatted a Mercer shot attempt, leading to a fast break lay-up by junior Rob Lowery.

Dayton led by as many as 26 points in the first half as another put-back dunk from Wright extended the lead. UD entered the break with a 48-26 advantage.

Mercer (3-2) came out hot in the second half and eventually trimmed the lead 12 points with 6:05 remaining. However, Dayton's defense held strong as Warren dominated the final five minutes of the game for UD. In this stretch, he scored four points and came up with a key block on a Mercer player who thought he had a wide open fast-break lay-up. Warren caught the player from behind and smacked the ball against the glass. It was Warren's second blocked shot to go along with three steals in the game.

In total, the Flyers had seven blocks on the night. They also outrebounded the Bears 48-31, which was key considering Mercer outrebounded their previous opponents by an average of 15.5 boards per game.

Mercer's 53-point performance was the highest point total allowed by Dayton this season. In their first three contests, the Flyers held every opponent to under 50 points for the first time since the 1947-48 season.

The Bears were led by Daniel Emerson's team-high 13 points.

Other contributors for UD included Little with 11 points, Johnson with 10 points, and freshman Chris Johnson who scored eight points and grabbed eight boards.

The Flyers will wrap up the Chicago Invitational Challenge this weekend in Hoffman Estates, IL at the Sears Centre Arena. Dayton will face the Auburn Tigers on Friday at 6 p.m. ET before concluding the invitational against the Marquette Golden Eagles on Saturday at 8 p.m. ET. Both games can be followed on Gametracker by logging onto www.DaytonFlyers.com, and the Marquette contest will be aired on WHIO-TV.