BELLEVILLE -- The Alton Redbirds played the St. Mary’s Dragons again on Saturday in the consolation championship game of the Chick-Fil-A Classic at Belleville East.

This time, the Redbirds made sure they weren’t going to fall short to the Dragons again.

Alton had three players in double figures and made 64 percent of its shots in its 62-55 victory over St. Mary’s. The Redbirds improved to 9-7 with eight regular season games remaining.

“That’s a huge win for us,” Alton coach Eric Smith said. “They’re a really good basketball.team. They played as hard as anybody that we’ve seen for the last two years. They’ve got competitive kids and they’ve got skilled kids.”

St. Mary’s dropped to 15-3, two of those losses were against Southwestern Conference schools. The Catholic school from St. Louis started tournament play on Tuesday with a 73-66 loss to Belleville East in the first round. The Dragons advanced to the consolation finals after beating Columbia on Thursday.

Two months ago, St. Mary’s stole a championship away from the Redbirds at the Redbird Tip-Off Classic, winning 60-59 in the title game. In that contest, Alton had an attempt to win the game in the closing seconds, but couldn’t convert.

On Saturday, the Redbirds led 18-13 after the first quarter and 31-20 at halftime. The Dragons got within two points twice in the third quarter, but that’s as close as they would get.

After the game, the Redbirds were presented with a consolation championship plaque.

“They beat us in our home court, so we owe them one,” Alton senior Ty’ohn Trimble said.

Trimble helped Alton avenge the Nov. 26 loss to St. Mary’s by scoring 20 points, including 13 in the first half. He scored the first four points of the game.

Trimble finished with 54 points in the three games of the tournament. He also scored 24 against Althoff and 10 against McCluer.

“Ty’ohn played pretty well,” Smith said. “I think there are three games where he had to come out of the game. He’s played every minute of every game the last three nights. He has picked it up offensively for us and he scored some points.”

Junior Kevin Caldwell, Jr. scored 13 points, including 10 in the second half. He finished as Alton’s leading scorer in the tournament with 67 points. He scored 31 against McCluer and 23 against Althoff.

Senior Dereaun Clay finished with 12 points. With St. Mary’s leading 8-7, Clay scored three straight baskets to give the Redbirds a 13-8 lead they would not relinquish.

Alton began tournament play on Tuesday with an 87-85 loss to Althoff in the first round before picking up back-to-back wins over McCluer and St. Mary’s in the consolation bracket. The 74-59 win over McCluer on Thursday snapped a three-game losing streak.

“We went through a rough stretch there, but a lot of it has to do with kind of believing that they were good enough,” Smith said. “If they keep winning games like this, they’re going to believe that they’re good enough and we are. We’re good enough to compete with people and we’re good enough to beat people like this. But the approach has got to be right and the mindset has to be right. The last two weeks of practice has been the best two weeks that we had all year and I think it showed.”

Senior Tyler Springman hit a huge bucket off the bench for the Redbirds. He nailed a 3-pointer with 3:05 left to give the Redbirds a 53-47 lead.

“You may not get all of the minutes that you want, but when you get in there, you’ve got to make the play that’s going to help us win the game and that (3-pointer) by Tyler was huge momentum wise,” Smith said. “Obviously, the three points have really helped.”

The Redbirds’ next game will be at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday against Edwardsville at AHS, their first home game since Dec. 9. For the last month, they played in two tournaments and four road games.

“As long as our kids do our job, I don’t think it’s going to be an issue where we’ll be able to compete and we’ll be able to play well,” Smith said. “It’s going to come down to how physical we’re going to be and if we’re going to let the moment kind of get away from us a little bit. In five years being here, you find out pretty quick that it’s one of more important weeks of the year for everybody. So as long as get through the all of the extra stuff and kind of focus on what our responsibilities are, we’ll be all right.”

CHICK-FIL-A CLASSIC CONSOLATION CHAMPIONSHIP GAME

ALTON 62, ST. MARY’S 55

Redbirds 13 18 10 21 -- 62

Dragons 13 7 15 20 -- 55

Alton -- Dereaun Clay 12, Ty’ohn Trimble 20, Darrell Smith 5, Donovan Clay 8, Tyler Springman 3, Kevin Caldwell, Jr. 13, Morris Adams 2. 2FG-20 3FG-5 FT-7.

St. Mary’s -- Yuri Collin 22, Isaiah King 2, Miles Jones 8, Antonio Burks 6, Lavelle Harris 3, Darrius Houston 2, Yahuza Rasas 12. 2FG-17 3FG-4 FT-9.