The Lee men's basketball team fired out to a 10-0 lead and never looked back in a dominating 83-66 win over rival Shorter on Monday night from Walker Arena.
The Flames led from start to finish with senior Ryan Montgomery leading the way with 20 points and nine rebounds. Quay Kennedy added 14 points and a pair of blocks while Parker Suedekum tallied 11 points and dished off nine assists.
"My goals this season are just to win and take this team as far as we can go. It's my last year so I want to do whatever I can to help the team win," said Montgomery. "We wanted to come out and get that bad taste out of our mouth from Saturday's loss and the guys got after it tonight."
Montgomery put an exclamation point on the first half and brought the home crowd to its feet as he spun baseline and hammered home a two-handed dunk over a pair of Shorter defenders as time expired. Lee held a 44-35 advantage at the break.
"Shorter played zone tonight and that's not something they've done this year so they throw a wrinkle at us and I thought our guys responded well," said Lee head coach Bubba Smith. "Ryan has been big for us all year. He's put on us on his shoulders and he has carried the scoring load but the thing I love about him is that he's not forcing anything and he's taking quality shots and being very efficient. "I thought Parker was huge for us as well. He got us into the offense and did a great job of finding the open man with nine assists."
Freshman Jayce Willingham got the start for the injured Michael McGuirk and scored nine points for the Flames while Jason Landman came off the bench and posted eight points and hauled in five rebounds.
Lee shot a 54 percent from the field and canned 10 of 12 from the charity stripe. The smothering Flames' defense limited Shorter to just 32 percent shooting from the field.
Lee dominated on the glass out rebounding the Hawks 41-28. Shorter's half court trap did force 21 turnovers but the road team was only able to cash that in for 12 points.
Ricky Knight Jr. led the Hawks with 14 points as he hit three triples. Frenki Lilaj scored 10 points and grabbed eight rebounds while Joe Russell added 10 of his own.
The Flames responded after suffering a buzzer-beating loss on Saturday night at Auburn Montgomery to move to 3-3 overall and 1-1 in the GSC. "I thought we responded well right from the start," said Smith. "We had good energy and focus the entire night."
The Flames will get back to work after the Thanksgiving break on Wednesday, Dec. 4 as they travel to North Georgia for a special "Middle School" Day noon tip off. Lee returns home on Saturday, Dec. 7 at 4 p.m. against Martin Methodist.
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