By Kevin Eckleberry

kevin.eckleberry@lagrangenews.com

It was a winning night for the Lafayette Christian School Cougars, who beat visiting Heirway Christian 74-55 on Tuesday.

It was the region opener for the Cougars (3-2).

Keyshawn Russell had a big game for the Cougars with 15 points and 11 rebounds, and OJ Parks scored 15 points.

Sam Shepherd contributed 10 points, and head coach Jarred Pike said Ben Griffies made a major contribution.

“He normally doesn’t play that much, but I put him in, and he was out-hustling everybody,” Lafayette Christian head coach Jarred Pike said of Griffies. “He was diving on the floor. He’s not going to handle the ball, but he’s going to out-hustle people, and out-rebound people.”

Pike also said that Ross Clifton had a solid all-round game.

“Ross only had nine points, but he ran the show and had six or seven assists and eight or nine rebounds,” Pike said. “He kind of did the dirty work.”

Lafayette Christian will take a break of nearly a month before returning to the court for a game at Arlington Christian on Jan. 5.

Moving forward, Pike said the key to long-term success will be maintaining a steady level of play all game long.

“We’ve still got some stuff we’ve got to improve on,” Pike said. “We’ve got to tighten up on rebounding. And we’re subbing guys in, but we’re not keeping the same pace. So that’s something we’ve got to work on is staying consistent.

“We have runs where we score 10 or 15 in a row off the press. Then we’ll have a run where we can’t do anything, and they score seven or eight points and are back in it. We need to be consistent in our play throughout the whole game.”