BELLEVILLE – Belleville West honored its 1966 boys basketball team on the 50th anniversay of its third-place finish at state on Friday night at West.

The Alton Redbirds refused to include a Maroons victory as a party favor.

Marcus Latham and Maurice Edwards combined for 48 points and the Redbirds made 10 3-pointers to beat West 75-58 in a Southwestern Conference play. Alton, which had lost four of its last five games, moves to 8-5 and 5-1 in the SWC. West is 4-9 and 1-5 in the league.

Latham made 10 of 18 shots from the field and scored 25 points, while Edwards was 9 of 17 and scored 23. Each knocked down four 3-pointers for the Redbirds, who were 10 of 22 from the arc.

“That’s something that we were hoping wasn’t going to happen,” West coach Joe Muniz said of Alton’s hot shooting from the perimeter. “We knew they had it in them to do that. But their shots that they made were all good shots – like a game of h-o-r-s-e. That’s what it looked like, a game of h-o-r-s-e out there. … We’ve got to do a better job.”

Edwards and Latham each scored seven points to help stake Alton to a 17-7 lead six minutes into the game. The Redbirds built a lead as large as 12 points (30-18) before taking a 36-29 edge to halftime.

“We didn’t guard real well,” Muniz said. “We didn’t get back on defense real well. They had their way. Their speed hurts us. But I was not happy with the way we guarded. If we would have guarded just a little bit, we probably would be closer than seven at half, if not ahead.”

The Maroons were unable to muster a serious threat in the second half, though they did trim an 18-point deficit (52-34) to 57-48 after three quarters.

But with Alton’s pressure defense forcing 14 of West’s 21 turnovers in the second half, the Redbirds were able to dictate tempo and the Maroons struggled to keep up.

“We knew that we had to force turnovers,” Edwards said. “We couldn’t let their big men control the game. We had to force their guards to play fast.”

Alton relentlessly pushed the ball upcourt and finished with just eight turnovers. Jordan Golley scored 11 points and Kevin Caldwell had 10 for the Redbirds.

“I thought, us being able to get up and challenge them a little bit, that we’d wear them down,” Alton coach Eric Smith said. “(West) had to get up and down the floor quite a bit. Offensively, the emphasis for us was, make or miss, the ball’s got to get to the other end of the floor as quickly as possible. I thought that was a big key tonight. We got a lot of easy baskets.”

When West was able to deliver the ball to Tyler Dancy in the post, the 6-foot-7, 276-pound junior finished. He had 26 points and eight rebounds, while making 11 of 17 shots from the field. E.J. Liddell, a 6-6 freshman, added 15 points and seven rebounds for the Maroons.

ALTON 75, BELLEVILLE WEST 58

Alton 19 17 21 21 — 75

West 14 15 19 10 — 58

Alton (8-5, 5-1) – Edwards 23, Smith 4, Latham 25, Golley 11, Caldwell 10, Burnett 2. FG-28 3FG-10 FT-9.

West (4-9, 1-5) – Dancy 26, Jackson 4, Liddell 15, Powell 6, Betz 3, Edwards 2. FG-26 3FG-1 FT-5.

Greg Shashack may be reached at 618-798-1486 or on Twitter @gregshashack