Highland girls basketball team lands 5 players on All-MVC team
In a season of major success, the Highland Lady Bulldogs basketball team got a nice finishing touch to cap it just a couple weeks ago.
Highland’s watershed 27-8 season which ended in the IHSA Class 3A super-sectional appearance garnered major postseason accolades for the Lady Bulldogs, as they landed five players on the All-Mississippi Valley Conference Team announced March 15.
Bella LaPorta, Ellie Brown, Megan Kronk, Kirsten Taylor, and Ashlyn Klucker were all named to the 2019-20 all-MVC team by a vote of the conference coaches.
It was a welcome way to cap off a superb season, and LaPorta said she was thrilled to get the news.
“I think we all worked really hard and it’s nice to see the hard work really pay off,” LaPorta said.
LaPorta, a hard-working junior forward, led the Lady Bulldogs in scoring averaging at 12.3 points a game. Brown, the Lady Bulldogs steady senior point guard, averaged 9.3 points and 3.68 assists in running the Bulldogs attack. She also hit 1,000 career points.
“She led the team in rebounding and scoring and steals and she did a lot of stuff for us,” Hamilton said. “Obviously, Ellie’s four-year career is one of the most impressive we’ve had in our school. As a whole, she’s had a pretty decorated career and I’m glad I had the opportunity to coach her all four years.”
Joining Brown and LaPorta on the first team were Civic Memorial senior post Anna Hall and junior guard Courtland Tyus along with Jerseyville junior Claire Breden and senior standout Abby Manns.
“I thought they (the coaches) had really good picks and I thought they did a really good job (choosing the team),” LaPorta said.
Senior guard Kronk and junior guard Taylor lead the second team for the Lady Bulldogs. Kronk averaged 9.2 points per game and knocked down 61 3-pointers. Taylor averaged 9.4 points per game and also was strong from beyond the arc, hitting 37 percent of her treys.
“Both those kids shot the three very well for us and kind of stretched the defense,” Hamilton said.
Civic Memorial junior guard Tori Standifer, sophomore Chloe White from Jerseyville, sophomore post Alyssa Powell from Triad, and Waterloo senior guard Aubrey Hubbard rounded out the all-conference second-team selections.
“The second team, I think three or four of those kids on the second team could be first-teamers very, very easy and it just kind of shows how deep our conference is,” Hamilton said.
Klucker, a senior reserve forward, made the squad as an honorable mention selection.
“Ashlyn, she was honorable mention and if you ask any coach in our conference they would probably say she was one of the top one or two defenders in the whole conference,” Hamilton said. “She guarded every team’s best player and the luxury we had was we didn’t have to game plan much for the star player on the other team because we kind of just put Ashlyn on her and she would lock her down.”
Additional all-conference selections
Klucker was joined on the honorable mention team by senior Bella Metzler and Lauren Brown of Jerseyville, sophomore Kelbie Zupan, and junior Jackie Woelfel of Civic Memorial, freshman Sophia Loden of Mascoutah, junior guard Sydney Hartoin of Triad, and freshman forward Nora Gum of Waterloo.
The strong showing on the all-conference team definitely left the Lady Bulldogs feeling like the program is a force in the MVC and an elite program in the conference.
“It gives us a lot of confidence and obviously we didn’t win the conference (this season), but it gives us lots of confidence next year and hopefully we can win it then,” LaPorta said.