Dayton, Ohio (November 13, 2010)-Mount St. Mary's opened the 2010-11 season with a 67-52 loss at Dayton on Saturday afternoon. The game marked the debut for Mount St. Mary's head coach Robert Burke, who took over the Mount program in May.

Freshman Julian Norfleet (Virginia Beach, Va./Landstown) led the Mount with 15 points in his collegiate debut while senior Shawn Atupem (Newport News, Va./Woodside) just missed a double-double with 14 points and a career-high nine rebounds in the game.

Dayton, the 2010 National Invitation Tournament (NIT) champions, used a 20-to-4 run that closed the first half and opened the second half to take control of the game.

Norfleet hit a three-pointer to give Mount St. Mary's a 17-16 lead with 6:11 left in the opening half, but the Flyers closed the half with a 12-2 run for a 28-19 advantage.

Dayton then scored eight of the first 10 points of the second half to take their biggest lead of the game, 36-21. The Mount hung tough, cutting the deficit to nine on two occasions in the second half, the final time coming on a lay-up from Norfleet that made the score 39-30 with 12:24 remaining. The Flyers scored the next five points to push the lead back to 14 and were able to close out the victory.

Lamar Trice (Philadelphia, Pa./Imhotep Charter) added eight points, seven rebounds and five assists while Danny Thompson (Springdale, Md./CH Flowers) chipped in six points for the Mountaineers.

"It was a disappointing result, obviously," said Burke. "I thought our guys effort and energy, generally speaking, was pretty darn good. There were some things that we can control that we didn't take care of, and in order to have a chance to win a game like this, we have to have to control all the things we can control. Overall, I think we got better this week and we will try and get better again tomorrow."

Dayton, which held a 54-to-31 advantage on the boards in the game, was led by Devin Searcy's 15 points and 12 rebounds while Chris Wright added a double-double with 11 points and 10 boards.

The Mount (0-1) shot 17-for-55 (.309) from the field in the game, including 3-of-19 (.158) from three-point range. Dayton was 28-for-69 (.406) from the floor and 5-of-21 (.238) from beyond the arc.

Trailing 16-to-12 in the first half, the Mount scored five consecutive points to take its first lead of the game. Norfleet capped the run with a three-pointer for a 17-16 advantage. Dayton responded to the Mount run by ending the half on a 12-2 spurt to take a 28-19 lead.

The Mount hit just 6-of-27 (.222) from the floor in the opening half, including 2-of-10 from three-point range. Mount St. Mary's, however, held Dayton to 12-of-34 (.353) from the field in the half. The Flyers controlled the first-half boards, posting a 31-to-14 advantage, including 11 offensive rebounds that led to seven second-chance points.

The game was the first game of the Global Sports Main Event, a five-team round robin exempt tournament that includes Cincinnati, Florida A&M and Savannah State in addition to the Mount and Dayton.

The Mount is now 0-3 all-time against the Flyers with Dayton posting wins in 1991 (107-81) and 1999 (73-51).

Freshmen David Golladay (Upper Marlboro, Md./Wise) and Norfleet were in the starting lineup for the Mount. It is the first time the Mount has started two freshmen in the same game since Jeremy Goode and Kelly Beidler were in the starting lineup at Maryland on Dec. 28, 2006.

Game Notes...Senior Pierre Brown (Williamsburg, Va./Jamestown) and sophomore Kristijan Krajina (Osijek, Croatia/Blue Ridge School [Va.]) each missed the game due to injury....Both players are out indefinitely...Mount St. Mary's defeated Coppin State, 69-60, in the 2008 NCAA Tournament Opening Round game in their last appearance at UD Arena.