Yates Vs. Lee, The Rematch: Generals Stay Within 100

Photos by Aaron M. Sprecher / Click here for a slideshow

​The Lee High School "cheering section" sat in the smallest little section of stands, in the lowest corner of the east side of the bleachers at Delmar Field House, during Saturday's rematch between the Lee and Yates High School boys basketball teams.

These were the true Lee fans, a group of about five women in their early 30's wearing white t-shirts with gold letters that said, "Lee High School Basketball Alumni." The women waved several homemade signs that said things like, "Once a General (Lee's mascot), Always a General."

The game was a win for Lee, as far as these women were concerned, even if the bar for victory was low. Tosha McIntosh, one of the women, held a sign with the "200" written on it, with a line drawn through the number. That was for 200 points, and the Yates team did not score 200. So, victory for Lee.

The final score of the game was 125-26. That might sound like a classless move by Yates, a team that has won 46 straight games and is ranked by USA Today as the third-best high school team in the country, against a woeful Lee, which has won two games the entire season. Lee's cheering section didn't see it that way.

"You can't show mercy," Robyn Fussell, another of the women, told Hair Balls. "Lee came to play just like Yates did, and you have to put up as many points as possible. They couldn't stop playing, just like we couldn't."

That can be debated.

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The first game between the two schools in early January drew national attention after Lee won 170 - 35, setting a state scoring record. Yates's coach Greg Wise played his starting players for most of that game.

Daryl Wade, the HISD athletic director, told Hair Balls that he met with both coaches and teams after the first game, but he didn't share any details about the conversations he had with the coaches. Before Saturday's game, the teams met at mid-court, in what we're guessing was a meant to be a show of sportsmanship, and exchanged t-shirts.

Yates's starters didn't play in the final period on Saturday, and it appeared that the team let off during the third quarter. So maybe Wise did hold back his team. If so, it's tough to say if Lee's fans were appreciative.

​"There aren't any [fans]," Fussell said after the game. "We're it. We try to go to every game, with maybe four other people, our principal (Steve Amstutz, the principal, was replaced at Lee last week), and a couple of teachers."

She added, "People don't care at Lee. That's the way it's always been, even when we were in school."

Fussell gave Wise the credit for turning Yates into a basketball powerhouse, and she should know: Wise coached at Lee in the 1990s, when Fussell and the others were in high school, before being reassigned.

"We watched [Yates] play Seven Lakes, and they didn't run up the score then," Fussell said. "Maybe [Wise] has some animosity for Lee."

If anything could be called classless, it was from the Yates fans in the final seconds of the game, yelling for the team to shoot a three-pointer that would have given Yates a 100-point victory.

For more photos from the game, check out our action-filled slideshow.