ALTON – Prior to the arrival of head coach Deserea Howard, the Alton High School girls basketball team had only won the Southwestern Conference once.
That was back in the 1991-92 season under head coach Tammy Bowling, who coached the team for 22 seasons with a record of 259-269.
Howard took the helm after a 6-20 campaign in 2018-19 under head coach Tammy Talbert, who came back to coach the team for two seasons after a six-year stint from 2002-2008.
When Howard took over, the Redbirds were not the team you see today. It was rebuilt.
Alton went 4-25 in 2019-20 and 2-11 in a pandemic-shortened 2020-21 season.
Then the graduating class of 2025 showed up – Kiyoko Proctor, Jarius Powers, and Talia Norman.
Those three, combined with the likes of Alyssa Lewis and Laila Blakeny created a strong starting five. Alton went 20-7 that season.
The following year, everyone returned, and Kaylea Lacey joined the fold as a freshman, further deepening Alton’s bench.
That team smashed the single-season win record and completed a 31-2 campaign. The Redbirds earned the No. 1 seed in the top half of the O’Fallon Sectional and would go out in the sectional semifinals to the host Panthers. O’Fallon would go on to win state.
Last season, Blakeny graduated, leaving the core three, Lewis, and Lacey as a starting five and the deepest bench the Redbirds perhaps have ever had.
That team also earned the No. 1 seed, this time in the top half of the Normal (Community West) Sectional. The Redbirds made it out of the sectional with ease but would go out in the super-sectional to Aurora-Waubonsie Valley in heartbreaking fashion.
Still, that team broke the win record again and set a new mark at 32-3.
That’s all context for what happened Thursday night.
A game had to be played against Collinsville, but it was more of a celebration, honoring the soon-to-be 2025 graduates – Proctor, Powers, and Norman – on Senior Night.
The Redbirds celebrated with a 67-27 win, closing the book on a 28-2 regular season, going a perfect 12-0 in the Southwestern Conference for a second year straight. Alton split the SWC title with O’Fallon in 2022-23 with matching 11-1 conference records.
In her sixth season with the team, Howard has now won three conference titles, but it’s this year’s senior class that made that all possible.
“I want to commend them for the way they’ve changed an entire program and community where girls basketball was literally nothing,” Howard said. “No one had to prepare for us, everybody knew they were going to run over Alton.”
“So, they had to wear that crown as freshmen, from 14 years old, and now at 18 years old, we have the expectation of state titles in a program that could barely ever win conference,” she continued. “They’ve done it, it’s stressed them out a little bit, but they’ve done it with a lot of pride with their heads up, and have never let their team down. They love the challenge.”
Against the Kahoks, Alton got out to an 8-1 lead and eventually led 18-8 after the first quarter.
The highlight of the game was Proctor’s second-quarter performance when she dropped in five three-pointers. She finished the game with 25 points on seven triples.
“You love to see that,” Howard said on Proctor. “For a kid like her to go through so much adversity to the point where we didn’t even know if she was going to be able to play her senior year. Not only is she playing, but she’s as good as she’s ever looked. I love that for her, I love that her confidence is there and that her team never lost confidence in her. From the day that she came back, they still feed her very well.”
Thanks to her shooting outburst, the Redbirds led Collinsville 42-16 at halftime.
Norman had her fifth straight double-digit scoring game with 17 points and Powers had her ninth consecutive double-figure scoring night with 12.
The three typically start and play nearly the entire game, and Howard wanted to make sure they had their time in the limelight.
“Absolutely. The whole team knew we were going to give our seniors as much time as we could possibly give them, respectfully,” Howard said. “I think we did that tonight. We wanted to give the community a chance to see them, and celebrate them, and support them. That is what tonight was for.”
“We knew the game was kind of getting out of control, but we didn’t want to pull them too soon,” she said. “People came to see them and it was their night, their moment. And [Collinsville] was cool with that too.”
