ST. PETERS, Mo. – The Alton High School girls basketball program hasn’t lost its season-opener since 2016.
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The past two seasons saw the Lady Redbirds open their campaign on long win streaks, a 24-game streak in the 2022-23 season and another 17-game run last season.
During those two seasons Alton had a combined record of 63-5.
Head coach Deserea Howard wanted more tests, and she got one to kick off the 2024-25 season, a 61-57 loss.
Alton went across the Mississippi River to take part in the 3rd Annual Fundamental Sports Shoot Out, a four-game event hosted by the Lutheran St. Charles Cougars which showcased two boys games and two girls games.
Alton took on the hosts in what was the fourth and final game of the day, and perhaps the best of the bunch.
The Redbirds, coming off back-to-back record-breaking seasons, took on the Cougars who have had an even more successful past couple of years.
Lutheran St. Charles won the Missouri Class 5 state title in 2023 and finished second last season with a two-year combined record of 53-10.
It was the first of many Missouri clashes that Alton will have this season, and this one didn’t go the Redbirds’ way.
“I feel good,” Howard said postgame. “It was a very, very hard test early on in the season, especially with no other games to really just see how we’d do under the pressure. I liked what I saw. I think a win tonight would have kind of been poor timing with where we are in practice. We got to see right away the things that are working for us and the things that aren’t so, I’m good with it,” she said.
When it comes to season-openers, it doesn’t get much tougher than Lutheran St. Charles on its home court. But the Redbirds wanted these kinds of games to make them better. It wasn’t necessarily a wake-up call. It was a test.
“I would have liked to have a warmup game, but we couldn’t get one scheduled, so it is what it is,” Howard said. “We had to prepare really hard for [Lutheran St. Charles], but we had to prepare for so many different things, because they didn’t play either. It’s okay, we’ve had the super, super long stretches, and they don’t get you to Illinois State. So, we’re good with the test.”
And the Redbirds studied too.
They knew that the Cougars had future Kansas State Wildcat Jordan Speiser, a 6-foot-1 senior guard who was named the 2023-24 Gatorade Missouri Girls Basketball Player of the Year. Last year she averaged 23.4 points and 9.7 rebounds per game.
She scored 29 points, going 10 for 10 from the free-throw line with five three-pointers on Saturday.
“We knew how dominant she could be,” Howard said regarding Speiser. “We needed to do better on the players around her. I think we put a couple different defenders on her. Obviously we got in some foul trouble with her. She had way too many free throw attempts.”
Other Cougars Ja’Riya Johnson scored 10 points, Kennedy Stowers scored nine, Hadleigh Todd had seven, and Addy Cooley had six.
Jarius Powers got things going with the game’ first basket before Todd answered with two free throws. Kaylea Lacey scored followed by the first of five Speiser threes as the Cougars led 5-4.
Alton, led by Talia Norman, went on a six-point run to go ahead 10-5 but Lutheran St. Chares would lead 13-12 after the first quarter.
The Cougars outscored Alton 23-12 in the second quarter to increase their lead to 36-24 at half time. Speiser hit a buzzer-beating three from right inside half court to send both teams into the locker rooms.
The Redbirds found themselves in a situation they weren’t used to, down 12 points at halftime. Last season, something like that would have infuriated Howard. But the first game of the season is always a wildcard.
“Last year we had some veteran girls. So, obviously I was a bit more frustrated with things like that happened,” Howard said. “Right now, we didn’t really know what to expect as a team and [Lutheran St. Charles] came out and they were punching us. Our attempts that we were working on weren’t working right away, but I think Talia [Norman] stepped up big.”
When the Redbirds came back onto the floor, they opened the second half on a 10-point run to erase the deficit to 36-34. Powers had six of those points while Norman had the other four.
Norman finished as Alton’s leading scorer with 22 points while Powers had 16. Lacey ended the night with 14.
The Cougars stood their ground after the run. Cooley fired in a three followed by a couple of free throws from Speiser to get the lead back up to 41-34.
Alton did, however, end the third quarter on a 9-3 run to close the gap to 47-44 after three quarters.
And they weren’t done.
Lacey scored back-to-back baskets to open the fourth and regained the lead at 48-47. Norman had another basket and two free throws to make it 52-49 Alton before the Cougars tied things back up at 52. Powers scored before Todd’s go-ahead three to make it 55-54. Lacey added one free throw to tie the game at 55 with 1:09 remaining.
From there, Speiser put the game to bed at the free throw line to get to the final score of 61-57.
But down 12 at the half, Alton knew the game was far from over.
“I told them we still have two quarters to go, we’re only down six baskets,” Howard said. “We’ve done this in our sleep, we’re still a veteran team, we’ve got veteran leadership. We’ll come back and make our run and when we do we just have to finish it. We just didn’t close it out tonight.”
This was the first of a seven-game road trip to open the season for the Redbirds.
They head to Peoria next weekend for a three-game tournament, then they open Southwestern Conference play at Edwardsville on Dec. 5. They then play another Missouri school, Pattonville, before playing at East St. Louis.
Alton will finally take its home court on Thursday, Dec. 12 against O’Fallon.
The away games don’t bother Howard and the Redbirds.
“I don’t mind. We’ll play anywhere,” she said. “As long as we can get somewhere and play tough competition. Right now, our motto is ‘there are no loses, only lessons,’ and so we learned a lot tonight and that’s okay.”
