AVE MARIA, Fla. — The Ave Maria Men's Basketball team won a tough, physical game Monday night against the Florida Memorial Lions. The Lions took 21 more shots than the Gyrenes did, but Ave Maria still came out on top 96-74.

After an opening bucket from Jonathan Effertz, Florida Memorial got a free throw and a layup to take a 3-2 lead. It was the only lead of the season for FMU over Ave Maria as the Lions did not have the advantage at all in the first matchup between the two teams in January and AMU took the lead right back on the next possession with a three-pointer from Michael Klekas.

Near the middle of the opening half, the Gyrenes went on a 13-3 run to turn a one-point game into an 11-point game. Ave Maria went 5-for-7 from the field with a three-pointer while the Lions went just 1-for-5.

As the first half was ramping up to a close, the Lions started to control the rebound game, snatching 15 offensive rebounds to Ave Maria's 10 defensive boards. Thankfully for Ave Maria, those rebounds led to just nine second-chance points for the Lions. AMU, while having a significantly fewer shot attempts than the Lions at the end of the first half, hit their shots when it counted and took a 42-31 lead into the break.

The physicality continued in the second half, but the Gyrenes battled through it. Ave Maria upped their presence on the glass and pulled down more defensive rebounds which limited possessions for the Lions.

On the offensive side, Ave Maria led by double figures for the entire second half and led by 20 more points for the last 13 minutes. The Gyrenes hit six threes in the second half to finish the game with 10. AMU has hit 10 or three-pointers in each of the last five games.

The largest lead of the night was 29 points, which the Gyrenes hit a few times in the final 10 minutes of the game.

When the final buzzer sounded, Ave Maria walked off the court with 96 points and the win. It is the 16^th time this season in 24 games the Gyrenes have scored 90 or more points in a game.

Klekas led the team with 26 points, bringing him 21 points away from tying the Ave Maria career scoring record and 22 away from breaking it. Jay White was next highest on the team with 20 points, his second-highest scoring game of the season. Two more Gyrenes hit double figures with Marlon Bennett scoring 17 and Effertz scoring 12. Bennett, Klekas and Effertz hit all 10 of the three-pointers for Ave Maria.

"[Florida Memorial] was plus 14 possessions at the end of the first half, thank goodness we shot it really, really well, and we were fortunate that they didn't. I thought our half court defense played into some of that. But give them all the credit. They fight so freaking hard, [but] I think in the second half, we really stepped up to the challenge and kind of evened out the possession battle," said head coach Jamon Copeland after the game.

With the win, Ave Maria improves to 22-2 overall and 11-1 in conference. The Gyrenes remain in first place with a game lead over Keiser who is in second with a 10-2 record.

Ave Maria will get Wednesday off before closing out the regular season with their toughest stretch. The Gyrenes will play four games in eight days to wrap up the season starting with hosting Keiser at home Saturday, February 14. Ave Maria won the first meeting between the two in West Palm Beach which turned out to be the first ever Top-10 matchup in Sun Conference history. Since then, Ave Maria has risen to fourth in the NAIA and Keiser has fallen to 11^th. Tipoff is set for 4 p.m. and the game will be streamed live on the Urban Edge Network.