ALTON – After reporting back to the Chicago area for a couple of games in the Grow the Game Shootout over the weekend, the Lady Redbirds can unpack their bags as they’ll be close to home for the remainder of the regular season.
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Alton played seven games in the span of 10 days between the Morton Holiday Tournament, a tune-up game against Chatham Glenwood, and two tough games in the Grow the Game Shootout.
When they took on Collinsville Tuesday night at home, they didn’t seem tired.
“I bet you they are,” Alton head coach Deserea Howard said after a 74-30 win over the Kahoks. “They won’t say it, but you can tell that they are. Right now it’s just about digging deeper and staying focused on our goal.”
“Obviously, we played a long stretch of games, so we got to have some practices,” she continued. “We wanted to implement those things into our game today. We implemented some, but not others, so we’ll go back to the drawing board tomorrow and hone in on those a little bit more.”
Alton got off to a quick start on Tuesday. After a brief 2-2 tie, the Redbirds went on an 8-0 run to jump to a 10-2 lead and then a 20-6 lead after the first quarter.
Alton kept going, opening the second quarter on a 6-0 run, eventually leading 42-21 at halftime.
Kiyoko Proctor and Alyssa Lewis hit back-to-back threes to open the second half and the Redbirds went up 62-27 after three.
It was the seventh time this season that Alton has scored 70-plus points as they improved to 6-0 in the Southwestern Conference.
“It’s a goal of ours to be conference champions,” Howard said. “We liked putting that number up on the banner and we’re just trying to do it again.”
O’Fallon sits in second place in the SWC with a 5-1 mark, Alton being its only loss. Both are ranked in the top 10 by the Associated Press in Class 4A. Collinsville slipped to 3-3 in conference action.
Proctor led Alton with 25 points including five threes against the Kahoks. Jarius Powers scored 15 points and Lewis had 12.
The Redbirds will be back in SWC action on Thursday, Jan. 11 at Edwardsville with tip-off set for 7:30 p.m.
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