Ryan Chouyouti brought a capacity crowd at the Ray Conn Sports Complex to their feet, not once but twice in Lee men's soccer 1-0 Gulf South Conference win over West Alabama Friday night.

Chouyouti played the role of hero as he powered a left-footed strike into the top left corner of the goal from 25 yards out to break scoreless tie in the 70^th minute. If that wasn't enough, he electrified the home fans again with a back flip celebration that would have scored high marks in a gymnastics routine.

"We just had a mindset as a team to be aggressive and stay aggressive," said Chouyouti. "I got some space and was able to put a good strike on the ball and fortunately it went in. We have a group of guys that believe in each other and we put together a full 90 minutes tonight."

Despite some close goals by West Alabama, including a shot by Patrick Sacher that was just punched away by veteran keeper Sam Keener in the final seconds.
Keener came on with 15 minutes left in the contest to replace injured goalkeeper, Roel Martinez.

The Flames partnered with the Lady Flames to host the annual Kickin It for Kid's with Cancer match to benefit the Austin Hatcher Foundation. The mission of the foundation is to erase the effects of pediatric cancer and optimize each child's quality of life through essential specialized intervention beginning at the time of diagnosis and continuing throughout survivorship.

"I was really proud of our guys tonight. We talk about balance in our program and a night like this showcases that there's more important things in life than just soccer," said head coach Derek Potteiger. "I love that our guys got the opportunity to walk out during introductions with those precious kids and also give them some quality soccer to watch and cheer on. We believe in the mission of the Austin Hatcher Foundation are proud to partner with them. From a game standpoint we battled from the start. We knew West Alabama would be a challenge, they have a very good keeper that came up with the special saves but our guys never relented and we broke through."

Both teams finished with 10 shots in the evenly contested. West Alabama's Harry Deveney was the tough-luck loser in net. He made five big saves and allowed just the one goal.

"Ryan has been really gaining confidence in practice and the last few games. We know what he is capable and he made a special play out there tonight and that was the difference in the game," added Potteiger.

The Flames improve to 8-3-2 on the year and 6-3-1 in the GSC. The Tigers fall to 5-4-5 overall and suffer their first GSC lost, moving to 5-1-4.

Lee will wrap up regular season play on Sunday is it welcomes Alabama Huntsville to town for a 3 p.m. kickoff.