ALTON - The Alton High School girl's basketball team finds themselves undefeated 16 games into the season. That’s all in part to the team’s starting five rotation.
A main part of that starting lineup is junior guard Alyssa Lewis.
Get The Latest News!
Don't miss our top stories and need-to-know news everyday in your inbox.
Reaching the midpoint of the season she’s scored 165 points good for a 10.3-point per game average. Lewis is an Auto Butler Female Athlete of the Month for the Redbirds.
Where she's especially lethal is from behind the three-point line. She’s knocked down 35 threes and has a matching 35 percent shooting average from beyond the arc so far this season.
Last game, a home victory over Belleville West on Monday, she scored 18 points, her second-best performance of the season.
The game with Belleville West was relatively close after the first quarter. That was before Lewis heated up and made five straight threes before halftime.
"It was just practice," she said after her excellent shooting performance.
One of those three-pointers was a buzzer-beater right before halftime. Alyssa said she has actually been practicing those kinds of shots.
"It was just a good night for me," she added.
That’s why Alyssa is an Auto Butler Female Athlete of the Month for Alton.
While Alyssa and the team enjoy being undefeated and plan to stay that way, they are turning their attention toward the ultimate goal of winning state.
"It feels amazing," she said about the team's record-setting start to the season. "It just shows that all our hard work is paying off. People are using it, the rankings are showing it. It just feels good to be recognized for all our hard work but we still have about 14 games to go."
"We don't want to hold our heads too high on these wins because our main goal is to win state," she said confidently.
Alyssa and the Redbirds will be back in action tonight against Arlington Heights Hersey in the 2023 Grow The Game Shoot Out. That game has a 5 p.m. tip-off time at North Central College up in Naperville.
The Birds will be back at home on Jan. 12 when they take on one of their Southwestern Conference rivals the Edwardsville Tigers. That game has a 7:30 p.m. start time.
"We're just putting it all out there right now," Lewis said.
More like this:
