Box Score
SOUTH EUCLID, Ohio -- Notre Dame faltered down the stretch, letting a first-half lead slip away in what was a taut, entertaining, back-and-forth affair in an eventual 92-80 loss to Lake Erie on Tuesday night.

Senior forward Eric Dummermuth registered a game-high 23 points, but the visiting Storm shot 55.7 percent (34-of-61) from the floor, 58.3 percent (7-of-12) from beyond the arc, and 81 percent (17-of-21) from the free-throw line in running their season record to 2-0.   LEC has tallied 90-plus points in both of their wins.

Notre Dame shot 50.8 percent (31-of-61) from the field in a game that saw the Falcons and Storm within four points of each other for over 80 percent of the game.

NDC broke out of the gate alertly, jumping out to a 10-3 advantage in the first three minutes of play.  The Storm then wrested away the momentum, going on a 10-2 run to take a 13-12 lead by the 13:52-mark.

With both teams in a good rhythm offensively and knocking down a combined 52 percent (16-of-30) of shots from the field through the first 11 minutes of action, the game settled into a fast-paced exchange of buckets.  A layup by LEC's Jamil Dudley at the seven-minute mark knotted the score at 20-20.  Dudley was solid for the Storm in the early going; he finished the half with 12 points.

Both defenses began to impact the game late in the first, and shots were harder to come by and harder still to make in the last few minutes of the period.  A key fast-break dunk by Lawrence DeArmond, fed by Kalomo Figueroa-Jackson, at 1:30 gave NDC a 30-27 lead.  The Falcons tacked on one more point and went into halftime leading, 31-27.

NDC outshot the Storm, 50 percent to 41 percent, in the first half.  Lake Erie stayed close by doubling up the home five on treys -- LEC hit four 3-pointers to NDC's two.

As was the case in the opening half, both teams came out running and hitting shots early in the second stanza.  A ferocious back-and-forth for several minutes translated into a one-point net gain (NDC 49, LEC 46) for Lake Erie by the 14-minute mark.

At one point early in the second, Lake Erie went 6-for-7 from the floor in a six-minute stretch.  The Falcons went a blistering 8-for-10 in that same stretch, and by the 11:40-mark the two teams were separated by still just one point (LEC 56, NDC 55) on the Murphy Gymnasium scoreboard.

Over the middle minutes of the second half, Lake Erie stayed hot from 3-point land, and the Storm began winning the turnover war.  LEC leveraged those factors into a 68-62 lead at one point, but a resilient Falcon squad scored back-to-back buckets to cut the Lake Erie lead to two.

NDC's momentum was stifled by a technical foul on the NDC bench, which Lake Erie parlayed into a re-established six-point lead (72-66).  The Storm built their advantage to 11 points (82-11) by the four-minute mark.   From there on, Notre Dame would get no closer than eight points.

Dummermuth's points came on the strength of a 7-for-10 night from the field and an 8-of-9 night at the free-throw line.  He was backed up by Lawrence DeArmond's 17 points and Tyree Gaiter's 13.  DeArmond had four steals in the contest, as did Jarvis Huntley.  Notre Dame committed a season-high 22 turnovers in the game, but the Falcons also forced a season-high 19.

Rich Austin and Jamil Dudley each tallied 20 points for the visiting Storm, who have now scored 183 points in two games.  Tom Parker added 19 for LEC.  Dudley came up with a game-high five steals.

For Notre Dame, the game marked the Falcons first loss at Murphy Gymnasium since Feb. 6 last season -- NDC had won four in a row at home since.  The Falcons are now 1-1 on their home hardwood in 2012-13.

Tuesday's game at Murphy Gymnasium marked the seventh all-time meeting between the Falcons and Storm.  Lake Erie now leads that all-time series, 5-2.  NDC is 1-3 against LEC in four games on College Road.

Notre Dame will be back in action on Nov. 26 when the Falcons visit Findlay.  That contest is slated for a 7:30 p.m. tip.