After surpassing 1,000 career points in 2020, the sharpshooting Eureka guard entered her senior year wondering if she’d get a chance to break Tiffany Stewart’s school record of 1,605 points, with COVID-19 threatening to shut down sports like it did last spring.
Not even a pandemic could stop Hillyer, however. She sank a 3-point basket against Ladue on Jan. 8 in an empty Wildcat gym (public schools in St. Louis County are banned from having spectators at athletic events) to break Stewart’s record. Going into Eureka’s home game against Marquette on Friday night, Hillyer has 1,648 points with eight games left in the regular season, followed by the Class 6 District 3 tournament at Marquette.
“I feel (now) I can have more fun and there’s pressure taken off of me,” Hillyer said. “It was a testimony to a lot of hard work.”
Before she broke the record, nobody was anticipating the moment or counting down the points, but Hillyer knew where she stood.
“No one knew I was going to hit (the record-breaker) except for me,” she said. “I knew but (her teammates) didn’t know. I pulled up and that was a fun way to hit it.”
Of Eureka’s top four career scoring leaders – Hillyer, Stewart, Molly Quinn (1,506) and Hillyer’s older sister Alex (1,501) – James Alsup was the Wildcat head coach for all but Quinn. That gives him a unique perspective on what separates the four players and how Hillyer came to rank at the top.
“The work ethic that it requires to make yourself a good basketball player is what sets athletes like her apart,” Alsup said. “These days the kids are happy to be on Tik Tok and not in the gym. It’s all about repetition, repetition, repetition. If you do it enough, you build up the muscle memory to be good at it. That’s where Kate falls into the 3-point shooting aspect. She is hands-down the best 3-point shooter in school history. That’s the main thing that sets her apart.”
Hillyer has made 224 baskets from beyond the arc in her career. This year she’s drilled 34 of her 93 attempts (36.6 percent) and is one of the leaders in the St. Louis area with 22.1 points per game.
“I’m scoring in a lot of different ways,” she said. “I’m relying on driving to the basket and getting rebounds. It comes down to my teammates want me to score. They are helping when I’m being face-guarded. I need to be consistent and do what’s open and not force it.”
Those drives to the basket are producing more trips to the free-throw line this season, where she is 74 for 83 (89 percent). Her accuracy on charity tosses improved after a free-throw challenge she set up with her dad last summer. If she didn’t make 25 in a row, she had to take 100.
“At the beginning, I shot 100 free throws a lot,” Hillyer said with a laugh. “You’ve got to keep it simple. I take one dribble and I shoot. If you think about any other shot in basketball you’re not thinking about it. When I start thinking is when I don’t shoot well.”
Not having her family there to cheer her on made Hillyer’s accomplishment more subdued. If not for the coronavirus precautions, the stands would have been packed with Wildcat faithful.
“It’s not as special because I couldn’t enjoy it with my family,” she said. “It would have been nice to see my mom and dad in the stands. But I had my teammates there. They were all super excited about it. They are very supportive of me and they are a great team. (Sister Alex) was very proud of me and she’s really excited to see how far I’ve come. She’s seen my setbacks and struggles. She’s my biggest fan and she wanted me to do that.”
Eureka ended up losing to Ladue 56-53 but bounced back on Jan. 14, knocking off host Oakville 60-56. One night later, the Wildcats hosted a tough Westminster team and lost 66-54 to drop to 8-7 on the season.
Despite competing two pools below Eureka in the Suburban Conference Green pool, Oakville gave the Wildcats all they could handle for three quarters and led 46-39. But Eureka erupted for 21 points in the fourth to come out on top. Hillyer led Eureka with 21 points; Natalie Harty added 15 more.
“We had a rough first three quarters,” Hillyer said. “We weren’t rebounding. We changed our mindset in the fourth and it became about effort. We got rebounds and stops and finished on the offensive end. Coming back from a deficit isn’t always easy.
“Natalie has stepped up a lot this year. We need more people to score. (Freshman Bailey Boulay) is going to find her rhythm and be more of a contributor. The hardest part for freshmen is getting used to the pace of varsity basketball. Before this you’ve never been scouted before. You’re always learning how to do what you normally do, but changing it up is difficult.”
Westminster, also known as the Wildcats, improved to 13-1 with their win over Hillyer’s squad. Westminster junior Brooke Highmark scored 29 points and eclipsed the 1,000-point mark for her career. After being outscored 24-13 in the first quarter, Eureka played even with Westminster the rest of the way.
“They jumped on us early and we tried to battle back,” Alsup said. “In the third quarter, we were down 41-40 and we couldn’t get on top.
“There’s no doubt they’re one of the best basketball teams we’ll play. We’ve got to have the mentality not to be scared if their record is 12-1 or 1-12.”
It doesn’t get any easier on Friday when Marquette comes calling. The Mustangs are 10-3 and this will be their first Yellow pool game of the season.
“Marquette has scoring inside and they press hard and throw a full-court press at you. We’ll see how we handle it,” Alsup said.