ALTON – A little over two weeks into the season, and the Alton High girls basketball team finally played on its home court Thursday night.
The Redbirds hosted Southwestern Conference rivals O’Fallon and won a close, low-scoring game by a score of 30-29.
Alton improves to 7-1 on the season and 3-0 in the SWC.
The first quarter saw only three combined field goals from both teams.
Lauryn Wimbley opened the game with a three and was answered by a basket from Josie Christopher. Jarius Powers put in a couple of free throws and then Christopher tied the game up with a three. Nakie McCottrell put down one free throw and the Panthers took a 6-5 lead after the first quarter.
It felt similar to the start Alton had against their other SWC rivals Edwardsville, a game that was tied up at 10-10 at halftime, one that Alton eventually won 41-24.
The game opened up a bit more in the second quarter. O’Fallon came out on a five-point run to extend the lead to 11-5. The Panthers kept Alton at bay and led 20-13 at halftime.
Alton’s two leading scorers Talia Norman and Jarius Powers struggled in the first half as O’Fallon was sticking to its game plan of clogging up the post, making the night very difficult. The two were held to a combined six points in the first half.
O’Fallon’s strategy was no surprise to Alton head coach Deserea Howard.
“That’s what everybody’s been doing,” she said. “So that’s why I was really just proud of us for staying with it. We could have easily started chucking up threes or try to go to something else, but we stayed settled, stayed composed. I’m just really happy that we stuck to our plan,” Howard said.
Doing a lot of the guarding at the rim for O’Fallon was Jedha Williams, but she went down midway through the third quarter and didn’t return to the game, nursing a knee injury.
That opened things up for Alton down the stretch.
But O’Fallon still led by seven at halftime. Wimbley hit another three to open the half, and then Powers closed the third quarter with an emphatic basket and one to fire her team up.
“She gets one of those crazy, and-one threes that ignites our team. She’s our heartbeat,” Howard said about Powers. “When she got that steal, I knew it was our moment.”
Alton outscored O’Fallon 6-1 in the third to get the score to 21-19.
The team traded baskets to open the fourth, with Powers and Norman going to work with O’Fallon’s tallest player on the bench with an injury. Powers put down two free throws and Norman scored a basket to make it 26-23.
Howard immediately called a full timeout with 4:52 left in the game.
Coming out of that timeout Alton went on a seven-point run. Wimbley hit her biggest three of the game to tie at 26 before Powers and Norman scored back-to-back baskets to lead 30-26.
“We tried to make it as hard as possible,” O’Fallon head coach Greg Knolhoff said. “They got some easy ones once Jedha went out, but for the most part, they had to work for every basket inside.”
“We haven’t done zone all year, but I felt like we had to do that tonight though, and just, if they were going to beat us, they had to make some shots,” Knolhoff said. “And kudos to Lauryn Wimbley who made those big shots for them. I’d rather give those up than Norman and Powers doing their thing. We had to give something up. Our focus was packing the lane.”
And for most of the game that worked. But Alton focused on its own game plan.
“Play our style of basketball,” Howard said. “Right now, we’re still working on our shot. We’re not going to force anyone to shoot up something they don’t want to shoot up. We’re going to get better at it. We will be better at it later in the season. But right now, we’re working the ball, playing together, playing team basketball, and just not trying to live in the team we were last year.”
Something Alton is taking pride in this season is its work behind the basketball.
“It’s something we talk about all the time is that if you can’t score, you better be able to defend,” Howard said. “We work really hard on our defense. We were confident that we could lock in on that while we were struggling, trying to figure out our offense.”
O’Fallon fell to 5-2 on the season and 1-2 in the SWC but felt like it still played a good game.
“I loved the fight that our girls had tonight,” Knolhoff said. “With Jedha going out there in the third quarter, it hurt us with size. I’ve got five guards on the floor doing the best they can against those two bigs for Alton.”
“I’m happy with keeping them to 30 points though, because they’re a high-powered offense,” Knolhoff continued. “We can be too sometimes, but the zone slowed them down and made them play a different game tonight. I’m happy with the result though.”
Powers ended up with nine points and Norman had eight. Wimbley also had nine points with three triples. Kyridas Orr and Kaylea Lacey each scored two.
Christopher was the game’s only double-digit scorer. Her three with seconds left in the game made it the final of 30-29 as she ended with 10 points. Haeli Tart scored seven, McCottrell had six, and Kennah Barringer and Williams scored three each.
“O’Fallon is smart, they’ve always been smart,” Howard said. “So, I knew tonight was going to be tough.”
“So, I talked to the girls about leadership before we even got on the court,” she continued. “We have some young girls and new girls, but we also have some seniors out there who have been doing this for a very long time. Just trying to make sure they knew that they’re the leadership that they’ll be leaning to on the court, and I’ll be the leadership that they can lean on in the locker room.”
Both of these teams will be back in action on Saturday in another shootout hosted by Southwestern Illinois College. O’Fallon takes on Ladue at 10 a.m. and Alton plays Peoria Notre Dame later on at 4 p.m.
Alton will be back at home on Thursday, Dec. 19 against Belleville East at 7:30 p.m.
