Dec. 6, 2008

Box Score

Lewis 81, Missouri-St. Louis 65 in PDF Format

St. Louis, Mo. - If Lewis University head men's basketball coach Scott Trost was impressed with his squad's 50.0% shooting performance from the field in the first half, the Flyers third-year skipper must have been blown away by his squad's performance in the final stanza.

Lewis shot 70.8% (17-for-24) from the field in the second half, outscoring Missouri-St. Louis 40-23 over the final 14 minutes to pick up the 81-65 Great Lakes Valley Conference road victory over the host Tritons at Chuck Smith Court on Saturday afternoon.

With the victory, Lewis improves to 5-2 overall and 1-1 in GLVC play, while the Tritons drop to 4-3 on the campaign and 1-1 in conference action.

Lewis senior guard Brandon Dagans (Harvey, Ill./Thornton) topped the Flyers with a team-season high, 31 points. Dagans was 11-for-16 from the field and knocked down four three-pointers. In the second half, Dagans was 7-for-8 from the field and knocked down all three of his three-point attempts.

"Brandon played one of his better games of the year today," Trost said. "He's so hard to guard. You guard him, he can get to the rim and if you play back on him, he can hit his shots from the perimeter and that's what happened today."

Lewis senior forward Jason Genova (Chicago, Ill./St. Patrick/Saint Xavier) added 16 points in the victory and extended his three-point streak to 22 games.

The Flyers received solid performances from their freshmen as guard Chris McClellan (Buffalo Grove, Ill./Wheeling), forward Matt Toth (Orland Park, Ill./Sandburg) and center Marty Strus (Hickory Hills, Ill./Stagg) combined for 21 points on 8-for-11 shooting.

"We played some solid basketball today," Trost said. "I thought Chris McLellan gave us a great lift in the second half. We played some really unselfish basketball, found the open man, gave up good shots for great shots."

UMSL guard Aaron Jackson topped the Tritons with 17 points, while teammate Jeremy Brown added 11 tallies in the defeat.

Lewis returns to action on Wednesday, December 17th, as the Flyers head to Chicago to square off with the University of Illinois at Chicago for a 7 p.m. tip-off at the UIC Pavilion. The game will be broadcast live on Lakeshore Public Television.

A Catholic University sponsored by the De La Salle Christian Brothers, Lewis offers nearly 80 undergraduate majors and programs of study, accelerated degree completion options for working adults, various aviation programs and 22 graduate programs in nine fields. The mid-sized university is being honored for the fifth consecutive year by The Princeton Review and U.S. News & World Report. For more information please visit www.lewisu.edu.

##LEWIS##