GODFREY — Edwardsville senior Mark Smith has been making his presence felt during the 2016-17 season and Tuesday was no different.

Smith poured in a game-high 32 points as the Tigers defeated Southwestern Conference rival Alton on the road 59-48.

With the win EHS improved to 17-1 overall and 6-1 in the SWC. Tuesday marked the 13th win in a row for the Tigers. The loss dropped the Redbirds to 9-8 overall and 4-4 in league action.

Smith was a load for the Birds, slamming home several eye-popping dunks and completing a couple traditional 3-point plays around the basket on his way to his 32 points, which were accompanied by 11 rebounds and 4 assists.

“He’s a good player,” Alton head coach Eric Smith said. “There’s not too much else to say, he can play. He’s a grown man.”

Indiana University head coach Tom Crean was on hand to watch Edwardsville’s Smith, adding to the list of Division I colleges such as Illinois, Kansas State, Northwestern and DePaul coveting him. Smith is honored by the attention, but said he doesn’t let it distract him from his job.

“It’s exciting to have those guys there and I’m blessed with that opportunity to have Tom Crean and his assistant coach come watch me, but I’m just out there trying to win the game,” Mark Smith said. “I’m worried about the team, I don’t really care about myself that much. I want to win and do everything I can possibly do to win.”

Fellow EHS senior Oliver Stephen, who finished with 11 points, including a trio of fourth-quarter treys, said Smith has become so much more strong and explosive. Stephen said it’s a product of hard work.

“I really think it’s that he’s gotten a lot better and can jump a lot higher,” Stephen said. “Obviously he’s put a lot of time in the gym over the summer and his shot has gotten a lot better.”

With 6-foot-5 center A.J. Epenesa on the bench after returning from the Polynesian Bowl in Hawaii where he was the defensive MVP on Saturday, the Tigers understood they had their hands full with Alton’s guard play Tuesday.

AHS was without senior Maurice Edwards for a fifth straight game. Edwards hurt his ankle vs. Collinsville on Jan. 3, missing much of the second half of that game. He only played sparingly against Belleville on Jan. 6 and has been out since.

Ty’ohn Trimble and Kevin Caldwell, Jr. have stepped up their guard play and Edwardsville head coach Mike Waldo knew he had to limit them on Tuesday. Trimble finished with 7 and Caldwell netted 6 points in the loss, with neither scoring more than one basket in any given quarter.

“Those guards are good,” Waldo said. “(Trimble) and (Caldwell) are good and I thought Caleb (Strohmeier) and Jack (Marinko) did a really good job of guarding them and I thought that was a big part of the game.”

But coach Smith said that opened the door for someone else to step up and that someone was 6-2 senior Dereaun Clay. He finished with a team-high 20 points, with 16 of them coming in the second half. His 6 points during an 8-point scoring spree to open the third quarter gave Alton its first lead since early in the contest at 27-24.

“He was more active in the second half and that’s what we need him to do,” coach Smith said. “He’s got to assert himself a little bit.”

Clay had the Birds within striking distance in the fourth quarter also. His bucket with 5:44 remaining cut it to 39-37, but Stephen answered with a 3-pointer to extend the EHS lead to 42-37.

Stephen then added back-to-back treys at the 3:43 and 3:15 marks to balloon the Tiger advantage to 52-39 and put the game out of reach.

“I have to say that was a big part with Jackson Best coming off the bench and getting some steals,” Stephen said. “I could get out in transition because of that and my teammates were able to find me.”

It was tight early with Edwardsville clinging to a 10-9 lead after one quarter and leading just 24-19 at the break.

A 6-0 second-quarter run put the Tigers ahead 24-14 with 2:27 to play in the first half. Strohmeier hit a shot and Smith added two free throws and a basket, but Alton answered with a 3-pointer from Trimble and two from the charity stripe by Caldwell to head into the locker room down by five.

The Redbirds played pretty solid defense until midway through the fourth quarter according to their coach, which kept it close.

“Defensively we were OK for the most part until the end,” coach Smith said. “We had a few fairly big breakdowns, but offensively we just kind of went away from some of the stuff we’ve had success with. We’ve been getting a lot of paint touches and we were kind of passive tonight.”

EHS’ Smith was happy to escape with a win over the Birds.

“Alton’s a good team and our plan was to take away Kevin and Ty’ohn, they’re good basketball players who can score,” Smith said. “That’s just coach Waldo’s preparation, every time having an answer… We’re just out there executing.”

Alton returns to action at 7:30 p.m. Friday at Granite City, while the Tigers will look to avenge their only loss of the season. They play host to Belleville West at 7:30 p.m. Friday at Lucco-Jackson Gym. The Maroons bested Edwardsville 59-53 during the SWC at the E Shootout on Dec. 3 at SIUE.

SOUTHWESTERN CONFERENCE

EDWARDSVILLE 59, ALTON 48

Tigers      10  14  13  22 — 59

Redbirds    9  10  12  17 — 48

Tigers (17-1, 6-1) — Jack Marinko 5, Mark Smith 32, Oliver Stephen 11, Caleb Strohmeier 7, Jackson Best 2, Malik Robinson 2.  2FG — 18  3FG — 5  FT — 8  PF — 8.

Redbirds (9-8, 4-4) — Dereaun Clay 20, Ty’ohn Trimble 7, Donovan Clay 6, Kevin Caldwell, Jr. 6, Damion Reid 6, Tyler Springman 3.  2FG — 16  3FG — 4  FT — 4  PF — 15.

 

 

 

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.

 

 

 

BELLEVILLE — The Alton Redbirds took the defending Class 3A state champion Althoff Crusaders to the brink of defeat on Tuesday at the Chick-fil-A Classic at Belleville East High School.

Alton was tied with the Crusaders on seven occasions and led four times in the second half, but ultimately fell 87-85. It was the most points for an AHS team since a 94-61 win over Cahokia on Dec. 30, 2014 in Centralia.

With the loss the Redbirds dipped to 7-7 on the season, losing for the fifth time in six tries, while Althoff improved to 11-4 with the victory.

Following consecutive lopsided losses to Belleville West (71-46) and East St. Louis (76-36) on the road, Alton head coach Eric Smith was pleased to see the life out of his squad, but he wasn't surprised.

“It’s the same conversation we continue to have,” Smith said. “We feel like if we’re competitive, we have a shot. We haven’t been overly competitive for about a two-and-a-half week stretch. It was kind of nice to see a little fight from our kids. I expected it, I just didn't see it for a couple of weeks. We've got resilient kids and it's a long season. Our schedule doesn't help us. Even our non-conference stuff, it's Champaign Central, St. Mary's, there are some quality teams we've played in some tournaments. Hopefully the end result is what we hope for and it tests us a little bit for the postseason.”

Crusaders' head coach Greg Lieb wasn't surprised to see the fight out of the Birds on Tuesday either. He knew Smith would have his team prepared for the showdown.

“Coach Smith does a great job, that's why he's right there every year at the end,” Lieb said. “I don't even know that he's upset people, the way he gets his guys going I think it's legit. They do a great job and they battled tonight. They were patient, didn't take bad shots, they got what they wanted and they were right there in the ball game.”

Of course Saint Louis University recruit Jordan Goodwin is the X factor for Althoff. He was wearing a brace on his shoulder which he separated in a 74-67 loss to East St. Louis on Jan. 7 at the Highland Shootout, but it didn't seem to slow him. He led all scorers with 29 points in the game.

Alton was without senior standout Maurice Edwards again. Edwards is rehabbing an ankle injury he suffered on Jan. 3 at Collinsville.

“That brace does a pretty good job of stabilizing it,” Lieb said of Goodwin's shoulder. “But you never know in these situations. As hard has he plays you never know, some things just happen.”

The Redbirds had three scorers surpass the 20-point plateau in the high-scoring affair. Ty'ohn Trimble led the way with 24 points, while Kevin Caldwell Jr. and Dereaun Clay each netted 21.

Smith raved of the play of Caldwell as the season has progressed.

“Poppy (Caldwell) through everything (this season) has played well,” Smith said. “He's a fighter. He may have struggled with shooting the last two or three games, but I think a little bit of that is we've struggled and he's tried to put it on his shoulders, but he's done everything else. He's guarding people, he's rebounding, he's taken at least one charge in the last four or five games. He's a complete kid.”

Lieb was impressed with Trimble's play. Listed at 5-foot-5, the senior guard isn't afraid to tangle with players in the paint if it's called for.

“He finishes well over the trees,” Lieb said of Trimble. “He really does. We're swinging at it left and right and he's just calm and cool, a nice change of pace. He's what Le'Veon Bell hopes he could be running the football.”

The tempo was set early Tuesday and it was destined to be fast paced and high scoring. When the buzzer sounded on the first quarter, Althoff was up 22-17, but Alton wasted little time catching back up. Dereaun Clay logged consecutive buckets to open the second quarter and cut it to 22-21.

The Crusaders took their biggest lead of the second quarter when Goodwin knocked down a trey with 46 seconds left to make it 42-35. Caldwell answered with a 3-pointer of his own with 38 seconds to go and the Redbirds went into the locker room down 42-38.

Alton took its first lead since less than a minute into the game when Dereaun Clay scored at the 4:54 mark of the third quarter to put his team up 51-50. Sophomore Donovan Clay added a basket shortly after to extend it to 53-50.

Althoff got a couple traditional 3-point plays from Bryson Strong and Melvin Brock late in the third to go up 63-60, but Dereaun Clay scored again for AHS with 4.3 seconds to go to cut it to 63-62 entering the fourth quarter.

Terrance Walker of the Birds opened the final frame with a score to give Alton a 64-63 lead. Unfortunately it proved to be AHS' final lead of the game.

The Redbirds tied it three more times, but could never get over the hump. The last tie came on a Trimble basket with 2:55 to play, knotting it 74-74.

A Caldwell score had Alton within striking distance at 83-82 with 12.2 seconds remaining, but a turnover killed its chances. Edwyn Brown of Althoff hit four free throws down the stretch to secure the win. Trimble's 3-pointer as time expired made it 87-85.

The Redbirds now play McCluer, which lost 78-62 to Belleville West on Tuesday. The Birds and Comets meet at 6 p.m. Thursday. West and the Crusaders meet at 6 p.m. Friday in the tournament semifinals.

Smith hopes the effort from Tuesday will carry over into the game with McCluer.

“It will be awfully frustrating to come out here and have a game like this, be close and then come out with no energy and no effort the next night,” he said. “As a coaching staff that's our goal over these next couple of days and compete. We feel like if we come out of this at 2-1 we'll be OK. Any thing less than that is going to be a little frustrating for us.”

CHICK-FIL-A CLASSIC

(opening round)

ALTHOFF 87, ALTON 85

Redbirds 17 21 24 23 — 85

Crusaders 22 20 21 24 — 87

Redbirds (7-7) — Dereaun Clay 21, Ty'ohn Trimble 24, Donovan Clay 10, Kevin Caldwell Jr. 21, Morris Adams 2, Darrell Smith 4, Terrance Walker 3. 2FG — 25 3FG — 9 FT — 8 PF — 16.

Crusaders (11-4) — Edwyn Brown 16, C.J. Colden 14, Dante Ray 10, Jordan Goodwin 29, Marvin Bateman 12, Bryson Strong 3, Melvin Brock 3. 2FG — 28 3FG — 6 FT — 13 PF — 14.

 

 

 

 

COLLINSVILLE -- With cousins Donovan and Dereaun Clay leading the way, the Alton Redbirds celebrated another Southwestern Conference road victory on Tuesday.

Donovan, a sophomore, finished with eight points and Dereaun, a senior, scored four to help the Redbirds pull off a 56-50 overtime win over the Collinsville Kahoks at Vergil Fletcher Gymnasium.

Both players scored key buckets in the overtime period. With 2:52 remaining, Donovan Clay -- who is in his first year with the varsity -- hit a 3-pointer to break a 44-44 tie. Dereaun Clay, who is playing in his second varsity season, scored a layup 38 seconds later to extend Alton’s lead to 49-44.

“Donovan has been pretty consistent handling the basketball and with him being able to make open shots, usually he finds a way to get on the floor,” Alton coach Eric Smith said. “Dereaun has the ability to help us out in a handful of different ways, like play against some post players and step out on the perimeter and do some stuff. They both did some nice things tonight.”

The Redbirds have won their third straight SWC road game and they’ll look to extend it to four on Friday against Belleville West. Alton improved to 7-4 overall and 4-1 in conference play.

“Anytime you win a game on the road in the conference this year, it’s an added bonus,” Smith said. “We’ll take what we got tonight and start preparing tomorrow for Belleville West.”

The Redbirds, who are in a three-way tie with Edwardsville and East St. Louis for first place in the conference standings, are looking to get a win at Belleville West for the fourth year in a row.

“That’s the goal,” Smith said. “We try to find a way to get some road wins and make sure that we win the ones at home. We’ll go home tonight and spend a little bit of time watching some film and try to figure out what we want to do tomorrow.”

The Clays were part of a balanced scoring attack for the Redbirds. Maurice Edwards scored 11 points, all of them in the first half. Terrance Walker scored 10 points, Kevin Caldwell, Jr. finished with nine, Ty’ohn Trimble had eight and Darrell Smith added six.

Walker scored eight of his points in the second half.

“Terry kind of came in a little late for us tonight with energy and the effort that he gave us tonight probably was the big difference,” Smith said. “He did a nice job against No. 22 (Collinsville’s Austin Knight) and when they stepped out and try to slow the game down a little bit. Because of his effort, Terry was able to make some plays and help us out defensively.”

Edwards was out for most of the second half due to an injury he suffered in the closing seconds of the second quarter. He grabbed a rebound off of a missed 3-point shot from Caldwell, then scored the basket as time expired to give Alton a 26-24 halftime lead. He was on the floor for several seconds before he got up and started limping.

Edwards attempted to play in the third quarter before sitting out for the rest of the game. Smith said he doesn’t know exactly what he injured.

“He said it was kind of sore,” the Alton coach said. “We’ll get him in to a trainer tomorrow and get it figured it out.”

The Redbirds bounced back nicely from their back-to-back losses in the Centralia Tournament last week. After beating Addison Trail in the first round, Alton lost to Champaign Central and O’Fallon.

“Especially when you lose two in a row, a win’s a win,” Smith said.

Collinsville dropped to 6-8 overall and 1-4 in conference play. Ronnie Midgett led the Kahoks with 20 points.

“We play a lot of good basketball teams,” Collinsville coach Darin Lee said. “Every team we play is incredible. We’re working hard.”

Alton led 17-11 after the first quarter before the Kahoks rallied to take a 20-17 lead after going on a 9-0 run. Collinsville led 23-19 before the Redbirds came back with a 7-1 run to tie the game at halftime.

Caldwell sent the game to overtime after getting a steal and scoring a layup with 2:10 left in the game to tie the game at 44-44.

Trimble had a chance to win the game for the Redbirds in the closing seconds, but his shot was blocked by Collinsville’s Keydria Jones.

Tuesday’s game was originally scheduled to be played on Dec. 16, but it was postponed twice due to inclement weather.

SOUTHWESTERN CONFERENCE

ALTON 56, COLLINSVILLE 50 (OT)

Redbirds 17 9 9 9 12 -- 56

Kahoks 11 13 11 9 6 -- 50

ALTON -- Ty’ohn Trimble 8, Maurice Edwards 11, Kevin Caldwell, Jr. 9, Terrance Walker 10, Darrell Smith 6, Dereaun Clay 4, Donovan Clay 8. 2FG-12 3FG-8 FT-8.

COLLINSVILLE -- Braeden Lemp 8, Jarron Williams 7, Austin Knight 6, Ronnie Midgett 20, Chandler Buehne 6, Marshall Harrison 3. 2FG-11 3FG-7 FT-7.

 

 

 

 

BELLEVILLE -- With his team down 18 points to the Belleville East Lancers with 4:14 left in the third quarter in a Southwestern Conference road game on Tuesday, Alton coach Eric Smith called a timeout.

“We told them that we have to start competing,” he said. “We didn’t necessarily think that we were playing bad. We didn’t have any energy and we didn’t have any fire. We were kind of walking around and going through the motions. We basically told them if they don’t want to compete, they just need to sit down and they responded.”

The pep talk worked. The Redbirds rallied to beat the Lancers 66-63 to take a 5-2 record into Christmas.

“It’s a big win for our conference,” Smith said. “We kind of got smacked around a little bit the other night against East St. Louis, so it was good for our kids to come out against a team that everybody said it was going to be one of the best teams in the conference. We didn’t necessarily play our best, but we gutted out a win.”

Alton junior Kevin Caldwell, Jr. hit the game-winning basket with 2.6 seconds left, when he fired a 3-pointer from top of the key to break a 63-63 tie. He finished with a season-high 24 points.

“He did a lot of good things for us,” Smith said. “He got some big rebounds for us and he guarded really well.”

Alton also improved to 3-1 in conference play. The squad won its first two league games against Granite City and O’Fallon before losing to East St. Louis on Friday on Dec. 9.

Two weeks ago, Caldwell, Jr., scored the game-winning basket with eight seconds left in the Redbirds’ 55-54 win over O’Fallon on the road.

On Tuesday, the Alton junior scored in double digits for the fifth time this season. He scored 14 of his points in the second half.

Belleville East dropped to 4-3 overall and 1-3 in conference play. The Lancers lost league games to East St. Louis and Edwardsville and got their only win against Belleville West.

Both teams will return to action on Dec. 28. Alton will play Addison Trail in a first-round game of the Centralia Tournament, while Belleville East takes on Decatur Eisenhower in a first-round contest at the Prairie Farms Classic in Collinsville.

Junior Darrell Smith scored 22 points, including 14 in the second half. Dereaun Clay finished with 10 points and Ty’ohn Trimble had six for the Redbirds, who beat the Lancers at Belleville East for the third straight year.

Javon Pickett finished with 30 points, including 21 in the first half, and Jordan Yates added 12 to lead Belleville East.

Pickett is now averaging 22 points per game.

“Javon is going to get what he gets,” Smith said. “To me, it doesn’t matter what he puts on. We just hope that he has an off-night. In the first half, he didn’t have a off-night.”

The Lancers led 21-10 after the first quarter. Pickett scored 12 of his team’s points, including two 3-pointers, in the period.

Pickett added nine more points in the second quarter to help Belleville East take a 38-26 halftime lead.

Yates gave the Lancers a 46-28 lead with 4:14 left in the third quarter, forcing Smith to call a timeout.

The Redbirds responded with a 19-4 run to cut Belleville East’s lead to 50-47 after the third quarter. Smith scored 11 points during that run.

Trimble gave Alton a 51-50 lead with a bucket with 6:59 left. The Redbirds extended their lead to 63-58 after Clay hit a pair of free throws.

Then, Pickett scored five points in a span of 13 seconds to tie the game at 63-63. He hit a 3-pointer with 40 seconds left to cut the lead to 63-61, then he recovered a loose ball off an Alton turnover and scored a layup with 27 seconds to go.

After Caldwell hit the 3-pointer to give Alton the lead, Pickett had a chance to tie the game with a trey as time expired, but his shot bounced off the rim.

The Redbirds outscored the Lancers 40-25 in the second half.

“We got to be able to finish a game better than that,” Belleville East coach Abel Schrader said. “When we thought the game was over, we completely stopped playing.”

ALTON 66, BELLEVILLE EAST 63

Redbirds 10 16 21 19 - 66

Lancers 21 17 12 13 -- 63

Alton -- Kevin Caldwell, Jr. 24, Darrell Smith 22, Dereaun Clay 10, Ty'ohn Trimble 6, Damion Reid 4. 2FG-20 3FG-5 FT-11

Belleville East -- E.J. Aldridge 4, Jaylen Lacey 2, Javon Pickett 30, Malachi Smith 6, Enrico Sylvester 9, Jordan Yates 12. 2FG-22 3FG-5 FT-4.

 

 

 

 

 

 

EDWARDSVILLE — The Alton Redbirds accomplished some history on Saturday.

They won the first game of the first-ever SWC at the E Shootout, beating the Granite City Warriors 71-45 at SIUE’s Vadalabene Center.

“It’s fun to carry on the tradition,” Alton senior Tyler Springman said. “I hope every year, we win.”

Now, the Redbirds are setting their sights on winning the Southwestern Conference championship this year. A year ago, they finished second to Edwardsville with a 9-5 record in the conference standings.

“We want to keep competing and get better,” Alton coach Eric Smith said. “We feel we like we’ve got good enough players and if we do that, all of that stuff will fall in line. If we play well and we come out and compete, we’ll have a chance at the end of the year to be in that talk and that’s ultimately the goal for us.”

Alton improved to 3-1 overall and 1-0 in league play with the win over the Warriors. The Redbirds bounced back from the 60-59 loss to St. Mary’s in the winner-take-all championship game of the Alton Tip-Off Classic on Nov. 26.

“We came out and played hard,” Alton senior Damion Reid said of the loss to St. Mary’s. “We just came up short.”

On Saturday, the Redbirds took a 6-0 lead over the Warriors and never looked back. They forced the Warriors to make 23 turnovers, 11 in the first half and 12 in the second.

“Every time we make a mistake, it’s a basket for them because they’re so athletic and it’s a tough way to play basketball,” first-year Granite City coach Raffi Karibian said.

The Warriors dropped to 0-5 overall and 0-1 in Southwestern Conference play. They play at Belleville West at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday.

“Nobody is going to feel sorry for us,” Karibian said. “Like I told them in the locker room, when practice comes up, we have to get ready for West.”

The Granite City coach said the conference will be very competitive this year.

“Every team in the conference is loaded,” he said. “I’ve seen the preseason tournaments. Everybody has done well on Thanksgiving tournaments. We’ve struggled and we didn’t win games. I don’t know if anybody has ever had so little varsity experience coming back like we have.”

Senior Torrey Deal led the Warriors with 13 points. He’s the only returning player from last year’s squad that finished 14-15.

Deal said he enjoyed the experience of playing in a NCAA Division I arena.

“It was a good atmosphere to play in a college environment,” he said. “We’ve got a taste of a bigger fan base. It was pretty packed. It was good to play in front of everyone despite the loss.”

Alton and Granite City played the first of four games in the Shootout on Saturday.

A total of 11 seniors played in Saturday’s game. Alton has six seniors and Granite City has five.

Alton’s seniors combined to score 42 points against the Warriors. Reid was the team’s leading scorer with 13 points with three 3-pointers, Ty’ohn Trimble had 10 points with three treys, Maurice Edwards scored nine points and grabbed eight rebounds and Springman finished with eight points off the bench.

Reid hit all of his 3-pointers in the second quarter. With the Redbirds leading 19-13 early in the period, they went on an 8-0 run and Reid hit two treys during that stretch.

“We needed a little bit of spark,” Smith said. “Offensively, we kind of stalled out there for a little bit and he came in and gave us a little bit of a spark and he gave us a shot of energy. It was a nice opportunity for a kid to come in and produce and help us out.”

Also for Alton, junior Kevin Caldwell, Jr., finished with 12 points and sophomore Terrance Walker had eight points and six rebounds.

The 71 points marked a season high for the Redbirds, who will play at O’Fallon at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday. Alton led 17-11 after the first quarter and 37-20 at halftime.

“We had some spurts where we did all right,” Smith said. “We had to find a way to try to stay a little more focused throughout the course of the game. We had a couple of breakdowns here and there, but ultimately I think we’re pretty pleased with the way we played today.”

Freshman Freddy Edwards had seven points and eight rebounds for Granite City.

“The thing about Freddy Edwards is nothing is going to faze him this year because he played varsity football for the whole season,” Karibian said. “So there’s nothing we can throw that’s going to scare him. He's just got to get used to playing basketball.”

ALTON 71, GRANITE CITY 45

(SWC at the E Shootout)

Granite City 11 9 15 9 — 45

Alton 17 20 13 21 — 71

St. Mary's slips by Redbirds for Boys Tip-off Classic title - Riverbender.com - 11/26/2016

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Updated on 06/10/2022

St. Mary's slips by Alton 60-59 in Redbird Tip-Off Classic title matchup

 

by Brent Feeney, Sports Writer

published November 27 2016 9:00 AM

 

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ALTON – Alton's boys basketball team fell behind to St. Mary's early on in their Redbird Tip-Off Classic championship game Saturday night.

 

That the Redbirds came off the deck and made a game of it was something Alton head coach Eric Smith was pleased to see.

“We've got competitive kids,” Smith said. “They're going to fight.”

Fight back they did, rallying from behind to get to within a point of the Dragons but Alton could not get the shot they needed to drop to put themselves into the lead – especially in the final seconds after a missed free throw – and fell to St. Mary's 60-59 in the championship game of the tournament.

The loss dropped the Redbirds to 2-1 on the year with a game coming up at 3:30 p.m. Dec. 3 against Granite City in the SWC @ The “E” event at SIUE's Vadalebene Center.

Alton fell behind early on and faced a 20-9 deficit at quarter time and 36-24 at the half. “We dug ourselves too big of a hole,” Smith said. “It's a credit to them (that they battled back), but the first 10-15 minutes of the game, we couldn't handle their pressure, we took bad shots, we didn't run any offense; they took us out of what we're accustomed to doing.

“Our kids settled down and did some stuff a little bit better at the end, but we've got to be a little bit better from the beginning.”

Smith praised the Redbirds' competitiveness. “We just have to try to do a better job of getting themselves ready to play at the beginning,” Smith said.

The Redbirds were even with the Dragons in the opening stages before St. Mary's got on a run and grabbed the lead, never relinquishing it as the game wore on though Alton kept chipping away at it in the second half.

Maurice Edwards and Kevin Caldwell led the way back for Alton, hitting key shots and making plays when the Redbirds needed them to claw their way back into it. They pulled to within a point three times, with their final chance coming with 7.8 seconds left and the Dragons' Antonio Burks having missed the front end of a one-and-one.

Edwards grabbed the rebound and charged down court, finding an opportunity to put a shot up that bounced off the rim. Alton got the rebound and tried again at the buzzer, but couldn't find the range.

Edwards led the Redbirds with 21 points with Caldwell adding 14 and Ty'ohn Trimble nine. Burks led the 3-0 Dragons with 17 points, followed by Yahuza Rasas with 14 points and Dominic Mitchell with 10 points.

In the evening's curtain-raising game, Carnahan, behind 17 points from Aaron Brookins, defeated Riverview Gardens 53-49; Davion Williford led the Rams with 17 points on the night.

Edwards was named the tournament's most outstanding player, with Burks, Rasas and Yuri Collins of St. Mary's, Tyrone Wright of Carnahan and Tavon Graham of Riverview named to the Bill Drake All-Tournament first team; Caldwell, Tyrone Bell fo Riverview, Miles Jones of St. Mary's and Brookins and Darrion Gibson of Carnahan were named to the tournaments' second team.

The Dec. 3 game against the Warriors will give the Redbirds a chance to work on some things in practice. “We've got a little bit of a break, so it'll be nice that we can get some practice in and do some stuff that we need to work on,” Smith said. “We'll get in here Monday and get after it a little bit and get ready to play Granite on Saturday.”

 

 

Feeney, 56, is a native of Granite City and graduated from Granite City South in 1978. He was a part-time writer for the old Granite City Journal from 1979-84 before attending Eastern Illinois University in Charleston,
from which he earned his BA in journalism in 1988. He has worked for newspapers in Sikeston, Mo., Rocky Mount, N.C., Seneca, S.C. and in Charleston-Mattoon. He also worked for the old St. Clair County Suburban
Journals.