The Hillsboro High girls basketball team is sitting pretty at 5-0 against teams from the Jefferson County Activities Association large-schools division.
But the Hawks haven’t clinched the conference yet. After tying Festus High for the large-schools championship last season, Hillsboro swept the two conference games with the Tigers (16-3, 5-2) this season, most recently at home in a 58-33 victory Feb. 5. The Hawks beat Festus by a point in January.
If Hillsboro, which improved to 17-3 after beating Fox High 54-23 Monday night in Arnold, is going to run the JCAA table this year, it’ll have to win its next three conference games on the road, starting with De Soto High (7-13, 0-6) tonight (Feb. 12). Then the Hawks, who are 42-6 since the beginning of last season, are at Windsor High (10-10, 1-2) on Feb. 16 and Perryville High (9-8, 2-3) on Feb. 19.
“We know those will be some tough games. It’s (conference) not decided by any stretch,” Hillsboro head coach Andrew Hubbard said.
In the game against the Warriors (7-14), who compete in the Suburban Conference, Hubbard said the primary goal on defense was to slow down Fox leading scorer Izzy Frissell, who is averaging more than 17 points per game and has taken more than 100 shots from 3-point range and the free-throw line. As usual, Hawk senior guard Kyra Matlock was given the task of limiting the other team’s top scorer.
“We knew they do ball screens for (Frissell) to get her open looks” Hubbard said. “Kyra guarded her most of the game with (senior guard) Kaitlyn Wiethop a little. Lately for us, keeping the other team to one shot and done has worked.”
Despite being in different conferences and classes, Hillsboro (Class 5) has played Fox (Class 6) in each of the seven years Hubbard has been the head coach, and the Hawks have won the last five meetings.
“They (Fox) play a physical style which usually helps us out,” Hubbard said.
Senior forward Ashley Hilton’s team-leading 24 points against Festus weren’t the only positive numbers for the Hawks, who grabbed 34 rebounds, and had 18 assists, 12 steals and three blocked shots.
“It was a mixture of things,” Hubbard said of the unusually large margin of victory in the rivalry. “We had a lucky break where we’ve had tough games lately. I felt like those games got our level lifted and we made some adjustments on press break and defensively and the girls did a great job of running our offense. Festus had an off-shooting night.”
Matlock had half of her team’s assists against Festus, putting her over 500 for her career, making her the only player in school history to do so.
“We really spread it out in the third quarter to do some good things,” Hubbard said.
Alyzah Scaggs is the Tigers’ leading scorer, but she was held to six points in the first meeting against Hillsboro. Wiethop and Hubbard’s daughter, junior Lola, guarded Scaggs in the second game.
Teams from the JCAA large-schools play each other twice, while the small-schools teams from the conference only meet once. St. Vincent (16-5) swept the small-schools title at 4-0 after crushing Herculaneum High (3-15, 1-2) 85-20 on Monday night. The Blackcats conclude their conference schedule at Crystal City (11-11, 1-2) tonight.