By KEVIN ECKLEBERRY

Daily News

It was a suspense-free night at the office for the LaGrange Grangers.

Facing WD Mohammed in the opening round of the LaGrange Toyota Basketball Classic, LaGrange surged to a 15-0 lead on the way to a 62-23 victory.

LaGrange, which won its third consecutive game to improve to 6-5, will face Douglass in a second-round game today at 7:30 p.m.

If LaGrange wins that game, it would play either Harris County or Spalding County for the tournament championship on Saturday.

“We played well tonight,” LaGrange head coach Mark Veal said. “We shot the ball well, we hit some transition buckets. We did some things really well tonight.”

Vondez Taylor led LaGrange with 17 points, and he made two of the team’s season-high eight 3-pointers.

DJ Burks also made two 3-pointers on the way to a 10-point night, and Jordan Ogletree had 10 points as well.

Jalen Parker scored nine points, and he knocked down a pair of 3-pointers.

“I was proud of how we played,” Veal said. “We talked on defense. We tried to box out and rebound. We took good shots tonight.”

Burks set the tone from the start when he drained a 3-pointer to give the Grangers the early lead.

By the time Ogletree scored with 2:50 to play in the opening quarter, LaGrange had a 15-0 lead, and it was up 23-5 heading to the second quarter.

The story was much the same in the second quarter, with LaGrange surging to a 43-9 lead at the halftime break.

Taylor did a lot of the damage in the first half with 13 points, and he made both of his 3-pointers in the first quarter.

The Grangers went more than two minutes at the start of the second half without scoring before Burks made a 3-pointer, and they ended up scoring 13 points in the third quarter to take a 56-15 lead.