Highland star eclipses impressive scoring plateau at University of Missouri-St. Louis
When Alex LaPorta arrived on the University of Missouri-St. Louis campus in St. Louis four years ago, her goals were simple: Help her team win and be the best player she could be for the women’s basketball team.
Fast forward four years later and the Highland High School graduate now has her name in the record books as one of the best players to ever compete at the school.
On Jan. 3, LaPorta scored 15 points to break the 1,000 point mark in career as UMSL blasted William Jewell 86-58 in a Great Lakes Valley Conference road win.
It was a very satisfying accomplishment for the hard-working 6-foot senior forward, who became just the 16th player in program history to achieve such a milestone, putting her in some select company with the top players ever to wear the Tritons jersey.
“Yeah, it’s really cool and I played with one of the other girls, Jordan Fletcher (Quincy, Illinois), who accomplished that and she was just a great leader and scorer too. So it’s definitely great company to be in and my teammates over the last three years have been so creative in getting me the ball in different ways ... it feels really good (to accomplish this),” LaPorta said.
LaPorta said, as she started her career at UMSL, goals such as scoring 1,000 points were not in her crosshairs.
“It hasn’t really been on my radar just because during my years of playing basketball, I wasn’t necessarily a top scorer,” LaPorta said.
In fact, LaPorta was unaware she was nearing 1,000 points until her junior season.
“I didn’t realize I was even get close to (1,000 points) until late last year when we started getting in a successful swing of things toward the end and were all scoring well and sharing the ball. Late last year I realized it was a feasible goal,” LaPorta said.
Only 100 points away, unselfish player
At the outset of her senior season, LaPorta found out she needed only 100 points to eclipse the 1,000 point plateau and said she never felt any pressure to break the record early. Rather, however, she allowed it to happen in the flow of the Tritons regular season.
“I knew it would come to me at this point ... when I only needed 100 or so, I figured I would be successful enough to get it; otherwise I didn’t need to be on the floor if I wasn’t doing something for the team,” LaPorta said. “There really wasn’t any pressure.”
Unselfish to a fault, LaPorta gives her Tritons teammates equal credit for helping with her achievement.
“Any time you get an achievement like this, it’s a program accomplishment, so I think all the girls were proud of me and of themselves. It’s a team accomplishment, so it means a lot for the program in general and hopefully other people after me can build off of that record,” LaPorta said. “Records are made to be broken, so hopefully someone will come after me and do even more.”
Highland star enjoying campaign, looking to future
LaPorta is relishing this season and hopes to help the Tritons make into the GLVC Tournament in March and succeed there as well.
The 1,000 point scoring mark is viewed as a steppingstone by LaPorta and she now has designs on returning next year, helping the team have a deep playoff run, and going after the program career rebounding record as well in what would be her final season at UMSL.
“Since the COVID restrictions (stopped us) last year, the NCAA is giving us another year of eligibility, so I don’t look at stats and don’t really care as much about points as I do rebounds, because that’s what I really love to do,” she said.
This story was originally published January 20, 2021 at 6:40 PM.