HAZELWOOD • After watching its school's freshman and junior varsity teams come out meekly in the second half in losses earlier in the day, the Eureka varsity squad wasn't about to do the same thing Wednesday in its game at Hazelwood West.
"We decided we were going to come out strong in the third quarter," senior forward Alex Hillyer said. "We made that emphasis to just come out and take over."
They did just that, and it ended up being the difference in the game. The Wildcats, sparked by 10 of Hillyer's game-high 15 points in the first 11 minutes of the second half, overwhelmed Hazelwood West during that stretch en route to a 48-35 win.
"It was nice that everything clicked and we got to pull it off," Hillyer said.
The non-conference win helped Eureka, which had lost four of its past five games, pull close to the .500 mark at 10-11. Hazelwood West, meanwhile, fell for the first time in six games and now is 12-6.
"That's a good win," Eureka coach James Alsup said. "We needed a good win vs. a quality opponent and we just got it. We've been banging our heads against the wall against really good competition."
After finishing the first half tied at 20, Eureka obviously came out of intermission wanting to prove something. Hillyer emerged from the locker room on fire. Also, junior guard Ali Wallner, who averages two points per game, made two 3-pointers during a 21-4 Eureka run as it pulled away from its host.
"I've been begging her to shoot more," Alsup said of Wallner. "She struggled early in the year knocking down 3s, so she kind of stopped looking. I told her the other day in practice, ‘they're starting to fall again (and) you need to be a threat when you're on the floor.' "
Hillyer, a Missouri State University recruit, almost always is a big threat. However, she had just five points in Eureka's most recent game, a loss to Parkway South. She rebounded in a big way against Hazelwood West, collecting 16 rebounds and five blocks to go along with her 15 points.
"There's a lot of teams that also have defensive game plans, and usually Alex is a big part of theirs," Alsup said. "Tonight, she was able to find space to play in."
Long bouts of offensive inefficiency cost Hazelwood West. The Suburban North Conference Wildcats struggled for a long stretch in the first half, too, and as a result fell behind 13-7 midway through the second quarter. They got back in the game just before intermission thanks to six second-quarter points from Araka Norwood after she picked up her third foul.
"She makes us tick," Hazelwood West coach Jim Fleming said of Norwood, who had to sit a lot during the third quarter after getting her fourth foul early in the second half. "Two of our losses were when she was out. When she's not on the floor, we are not the same team."
After getting back on the floor, Norwood soon fouled out of the game, which left Hazelwood West with little hope at that point.
"These guys were so big inside, we couldn't penetrate," Fleming said. "Every time we got close, Hillyer there would just put her arm out and our girls would be, like, ‘oh, no, we can't do this.' We were too tentative then."
Mia Williams scored a team-high 13 points for Hazelwood West. Alexis Robinson, who had averaged 25 points in her last two games, was held to just eight points.
