ROME, Ga. – The Shorter Hawks came up with one of their most balanced outings of the season and had one of their best nights at the free throw line as they fought off the visiting Lee Flames to claim a 79-76 Gulf South Conference win Thursday night at the Winthrop-King Centre.

The win improves Shorter to 7-4 in the GSC and 12-5 overall, and provided Hawks head coach Chad Warner his 150^th career victory.

"It was a true team effort," Warner said about the game in which the Hawks, who entered the game hitting just mover 60 percent of their foul shots but against Lee (9-6, 4-6) converted nearly 82 percent of their charity tosses.

"We had a great game plan," the coach added, "and the guys fought hard."

Heading up the balanced attack for the Hawks was Jordan Jacks, who ended the with a game-high 22 points and 14 rebounds, the ninth time this season the sophomore has turned in a double-double.

Trevor McDade added 16 points for and Travis Jones connected for 13 points with 11 of those coming in the second half. Chris Daniels and Dedric Ware rounded out the double-digit production by the Hawks and although Ware was held below his 20 ppg average dished out five assists.

The two teams opened the game in a see-saw battle for the first 15 minutes of play with neither Shorter nor Lee able to come up with a run.

That, however, changed with just under three minutes left in the first half when Ware nailed a short jumper in the lane to give his team a 28-26 lead and start 9-0 run, with Daniels – all 10 of his points came in the first half – following Ware's lead scoring inside and McDade providing a pair of free throws and a three-pointer with 1:08 remaining opening period that gave the Hawks their biggest lead of the first 20 minutes, 35-26.

The Flames were able to cut into the deficit in the final seconds as the Hawks took a 35-31 advantage into the locker room at the break. But the Hawks saw that margin quickly evaporate when the second half began as Lee charged back to assume a 36-35 advantage on a Tyquan Roberts' free throw.

Shorter quickly responded responded with another run, this one lasting four minutes when the Hawks outscored the Flames 11-1 to take a 46-37 lead when Ware found Jacks open for a fast-break dunk with 14:02 left to play.

The Hawks eventually took their biggest lead of the game, 52-41, when Kordario Fleming scored in the paint only to see Lee mount another comeback and with 8:09 remaining the Flames found themselves back in front 55-54 when Roberts converted a pair of foul shots.

Both teams traded baskets over the next four minutes but with 4:40 to go Ware found the touch from beyond the three-point arc to give the Hawks the lead for good, 67-64.
Roberts paced the Flames with 15 points, Cory Billingsley had 13, Chase Cullen added 12 and Elgrin Wilson finished with 10.

Now at the halfway points of their GSC schedule, the Hawks will get their longest break from action of the season before returning to play next Thursday when they hit the road to Memphis to face conference foe Christian Brothers and remain in the Volunteer State on Jan. 24 taking on Union in Jackson, Tenn.

"I'm excited about where we stand right now in the conference," said Warner.