The start of the 2023-2024 high school basketball season was bleak for Lake Charles College Prep after an 0-6 record and a pile of injuries and illness.

But now that they have their full complement of players, the Trailblazers are on the rise.

Over the opening month of the season, the LCCP had as many as eight players out of the lineup.

The Trailblazers started to turn things around on Dec. 19 with a 60-53 win road win over Opelousas and have turned it into a seven-game win streak.

“We had a lot of injuries and a bunch of guys with the flu,” LCCP head coach Sean Andrus said. “We kind of started off slow.

“We started getting healthy towards the end of December. It has been showing in our record. In one game, I dressed out four freshmen for varsity. It was one of those things where we had 15 guys out with the flu and a couple of coaches as well.

“The Christmas break gave us a chance to get back into it. We are finally fully healthy right now. “

LCCP (8-7) has four starters back from a team that won 26 games, shared the District 3-3A title with state semifinalist Iowa, and lost in the regional round of the playoffs to Landry by two points. LCCP hosts South Beauregard (12-9) tonight in the district opener for both schools.

“We have everything we need in terms of size and depth and athleticism,” Andrus said. “With us playing in a tough division, if we continue to build in district, it is a possibility that we can make it to the top 28.

“Last year as juniors, they came in and played the style of ball that we needed to play, but they didn’t understand what the program’s mentality was. This year as seniors, they have taken ownership of the program. They help the younger guys grow, especially with the way we started and how tough it was.

“They stayed engaged, they stayed locked in and they weathered the storm. That is all because of their maturity and their trust in the process of the program and where it is going. They kept believing in the grind mentality that we preach.”

A full lineup has allowed LCCP to get back to its normal game plan.

“We are getting back to the swing of things, playing nine or 10 guys in the rotation and playing a little faster and the kind of ball we normally play at Lake Charles College Prep,” Andrus said. “We kind of been running our man-to-man (defense), but we have been switching in a little bit of zone to change things up.

“We have been pressuring the ball a lot to get turnovers so we can get easy transition buckets. That has been helping us a lot, again having guys back to create that depth that we need to play the speed of basketball that we want.”

Six-foot-3 senior guard Elijah Garrick is the Trailbazers’ top scorer at 16 points a game, while senior point guard Donald Brown has upped his scoring to 11. Also back is senior Dre Polidore, who has played five games since returning from a quad injury, and 6-8 junior Brayden Sinegal.

“He is a competitor,” Andrus said of Sinegal. “He brings not only intensity and toughness on the defensive side, but he is a very good scorer for us. We run our stuff through him. He can get us a tough bucket when needed. Every time you throw that guy out there, he is going to give 110 percent.

“(Brown) was our starting point guard last year, and I think he averaged around eight points and six assists a game. We have asked him to score a little bit more this year, but his assist average hasn’t gone down.”

After sitting out last season because of transfer rules, 6-4 junior forward Izayha Brown quickly became a key contributor, averaging 12 points a game.

“He plays all over the floor for us,” Andrus said. “Sometimes we have him handling the ball, and sometimes we have him playing as our five-guy because he is a physical player.

“He is kind of like a Swiss Army knife. He does all the little things for us. He is our second-leading scorer as well. He has immediately brought an impact this year as a first-year starter.”

While they lost their first six games, the experience gained by younger players has added depth, which plays into LCCP’s desire to run a deep rotation. Freshman Caiden Jones, a 6-foot wing, and 6-4 sophomore Evan Burns have benefited from that unexpected playing time.

“A lot of guys played a lot earlier than they probably would have thought, being that we returned so many guys,” Andrus said. “With so many injuries and illnesses, it kind of helped us build depth in an organic way.

“Now a lot of guys, no matter what lineup we put them in, are comfortable with playing with one another because they were kind of thrown into the fire. Even though we started on a rough patch, it has been building confidence in the guys throughout. Now I feel like they are comfortable playing in big games.”