Kyle Brown poured in a career-high 31 points to lead LaGrange to a 94-75 USA South win over Huntingdon in Mariotti Gym on Wednesday night. The Panthers (14-10, 9-2 USA South) celebrated Faculty Appreciation Night with their fourth straight win.
The Panthers are now tied with Covenant for second in the division with one game left in the regular season. The Panthers play at Brevard on Saturday, while Covenant hosts division leader Maryville.
"It was a good night for the Panthers," Coach Kendal Wallace said. "We have one more thing to do and that's go up to Brevard and win that game to put us in the best possible position for the conference tournament.
"Tonight, we had a really good sixth man environment that comes out here and helps us bring a win to the house. In the second half, we found our identity and came out and played hard especially for our faculty who was here in the building tonight."
Brown shot 93.8% (15-of-16) in setting a new school game record for the NCAA era. He had 18 points in the first half, hitting 10-of-11 shots. Zac Hill added 18 points, Bershard Edwards 17, and Camerin Lyons 12.
"It was great to see Kyle come out and do his thing," Wallace said. "You can't speak enough about how hard Kyle works."
The Panthers raced to a 55-45 halftime lead, shooting 73.5% in the half. With Brown leading the way, the Panthers scored 34 of their points in the paint.
Huntingdon (7-15, 1-10 USA South) jumped out to a quick 10-2 lead. Micah Paulk's 3-pointer gave the Panthers a 21-18 lead and they never trailed again. Edwards hit a jumper to push the lead to 11, 35-24, with 8:14 left in the half. He hit another shot just before the buzzer to give LC the 10-point lead at the break.
The Hawks got within four in the opening minutes of the second half. Hill's 3-pointer gave the Panthers their 10-point lead back, 66-56. Huntingdon never got closer than seven points the rest of the way. Leading 74-67, the Panthers used a 9-2 run to double the lead. Brown scored on the fast break after Gabe Cofield made a steal at the defensive end to make it 83-69 with seven minutes left. Cofield had game-high nine rebounds, and two assists, steals, and blocks each. The 94-75 final was the largest lead of the night for LC.
Wallace also wanted to recognize the Autism Speaks organization.
"We wanted to play well for Autism Speaks," he said. "It's a thing I am pretty close to. I had a couple of players in the past with autism and we wanted to show our awareness for autism tonight."
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