O’FALLON – Senior guard Myana Lampley led the way with 15 points, while Randi Goodwin added 12 as Belleville West eliminated Alton in the IHSA Class 4A girls basketball regional 44-35 in a quarterfinal game Monday evening at the Panther Dome.
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The Redbirds played well at times, trailing at halftime 20-19, and had a very good third quarter, where they trailed the Maroons 34-31. West was able to pull away in the final quarter to win by the 44-35 margin.
“I think we played well at times, and other times, we looked flat,” said Alton coach Tammy Talbert. “We were only down by one at the half, and we played a pretty good third quarter, but in the fourth, we ran out of gas.”
Three Redbird players – Laila McNeal, Germayia Wallace and Ivoree Lacey – each had nine points in the game, which turned out to be not as physical as the last time the two teams met.
“Down low, it was physical,” Talbert said, “but overall, not as much as it was the last time.”
The Redbirds ended their season 6-20, and Talbert felt that her team played hard, and was in every game.
“I think that, overall, we played hard,” Talbert said, “but we didn’t get the wins that sometimes, I thought we deserved. But overall, it was a very good experience with the girls.”
The Redbirds will be graduating six seniors – McNeal, Deja Carter, Jayla Fox, Haninah Hamilton, Chr’shonna Hickman and A’llurah Robinson-Bowens – and will have a number of younger players moving up to the varsity in 2019-20.
“We lose six seniors, so we’ll be starting fresh next year,” Talbert said. “We hope that the ones we get back will be in the summer program, we’ll get some games this summer, and in the fall, we’ll work on fundamentals.”
The Redbirds may have a young team next season, but will be working hard in the offseason and the preseason in order to enjoy success next year.
“We’ll be young next year,” Talbert said, “and we’ll have some young kids, but we’ll get into the gym, we’ll work hard and we’ll be ready to go next season.”
The Maroons improve to 16-15 on the year, and advance to play the host Panthers in the first semifinal Wednesday evening, with a 6 p.m. tip-off.
Colin Feeney also contributed to this story.
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