ALTON - Reese Plont, a senior outside hitter for the Alton High School girls' volleyball team, has provided much leadership and encouragement to her teammates this season, in which the Redbirds are currently 11-13-1 after Alton's loss to the Tigers 25-17, 25-10 in a Southwestern Conference match played Oct. 11 at Lucco-Jackson Gym.
Plont has been one of the team's statistical leaders this season, serving up 82 points and 20 aces, also having 134 kills with 19 blocks, 21 assists and 229 digs as the season goes into the final two weeks before the IHSA Class 4A playoffs start later this month.
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For her efforts both on and off the court, Plont has been selected as the school's Riverbender.com Auto Butler female Athlete of the Month for October, 2022.
Plont, who plays for head coach Dan Carter, felt that her team did have some good moments and worked well together as a team, but were missing some key parts due to injury and with another player on a college visit.
I think we worked well together, especially in the first set," Plont said about the match with the Tigers, one of the best volleyball teams in the state. "We were missing two of our starters tonight, so we were struggling a little bit with that. But we worked hard, fixing it, working with the people we had coming in, so I think we did well overall."
The team has stayed around the .500 mark all season and has played well, which is a strong feather in the Redbirds' cap this year.
"I am proud of myself and proud of the team," she said.
Plont feels that the season has gone well and the team has done good things as the playoff approach.
"We're working hard, practicing hard every day, playing hard every game," she said.
It's what's been called the one-percenters, the little things that play such a big role in the success of a team, and Plont said some of those have been a key part of the Redbirds' success thus far.
"I think talking communication," Plont said. "Thorough rotations."
Plont also is feeling good about the Redbirds being at the break-even point all year going into the regionals.
"We are ready for our regionals," she said.
Those regionals will start on Oct. 25 at Edwardsville when the Redbirds meet Belleville West in a semifinal match. Plont and her teammates are looking forward to the regionals and the start of the playoffs.
There are still some regular season conference matches ahead for the Redbirds, along with a tournament at Civic Memorial on Oct. 15 and Plont is feeling confident that the Redbirds will play well in that tournament and the remainder of the regular season and into the postseason.
"Yes, I think our conference is playing very good this year," Plont said, "and we've been playing our hardest. We're going to play hard the rest of the way."
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