Basketball Player's Hard Work Puts Her in Spotlight

Six-foot, three-inch Eureka High School junior basketball player Alex Hillyer picked the right time in life for a growth spurt.

She has been playing basketball since she was 5 or 6 years old, and Hillyer said she was “very little and very skinny.” In the summer before her freshman year at Eureka, Hillyer grew six inches. She immediately started on the varsity basketball team, playing post for the first time, and has been a force in the paint for the Wildcats ever since.

Hillyer is now one of the top scorers in the entire St. Louis metro area.

“Alex is pretty much the focal point of our team, especially on offense,” Eureka girls coach James Alsup said. “We want to get her the ball as much as possible, whether she catches it and scores it, or catches it and kicks it out.”

Hillyer has helped to the district finals the past two years. Each time, the Wildcats were denied by Parkway South from going on to regional play. This could be the Wildcats year, though. They beat Parkway South, 54-47, on Jan. 29 as Hillyer scored a game-high 27 points. She currently averages 19.4 points a game.

Hillyer is on the court year-round. She plays on the St. Louis Team Adidas summer league club, picking it up when high school basketball ends. She said the last practice for the club team is the day before high school practice starts. “It’s definitely 365 days,” she said.

Though basketball is a big part of Hillyer’s life, it’s not the most important thing.

“I put school before basketball, for sure,” she said, “and my family comes before basketball. I work very hard at school, keeping my grades up. I just work hard at everything that I do.”

In the spring, she also competes in shot put and discus on the Wildcats' track team.

Hillyer volunteers with Teenage Health Consultants, a program sponsored by the St. Louis County Department of Health. It trains high school students to mentor younger students. “I go around to middle schools and talk about making good choices. It’s my first year doing it. I love kids, number one,” Hillyer said.

“I think it’s important to help,” she said. “God has put me in a good spot, and I need to help other people who are less fortunate or just help kids get on the right path of life, because I feel like I’ve had a lot of support from older people helping me get on the right path. I feel like I have the same duty to do that for others.”

Hillyer lives with her mom, her dad and two younger siblings, Katey, 8, and Nick, 12, and they all play basketball. “I would say (my brother and sister) are more athletic than I am … I think they’ll pass me up. They are both very good kids, and tremendous athletes.”

She’s keeping all her college options open at this point. “I have a lot of work I need to do before I’m ready to go off to college,” she said. “And then after this season, I’m going to seriously start looking into different schools, and just focusing on my personal game.”

Hillyer said she’s working on improving her dribbling and her overall strength and dexterity. She works out weekly with a conditioning coach, and goes to Hammer Bodies gym to work on her power, speed, agility and flexibility.

Alsup said that Hillyer is extremely competitive. “I don’t know if it makes any sense,” he said, “but she loves to win more than she hates to lose.

“She has a great work ethic, and it does rub off on other kids, to see how much she wants it, and they want it for her and with her,” he said.