Rowan Weller Leads Edwardsville To Victory Over O’Fallon With 16-Point Effort

Weller's clutch fourth-quarter scoring, handling of offense, helped Edwardsville secure a 57-46 win in a competitive Southwestern Conference game.

Colin Feeney, Contributing Sports Writer

Jan 7, 2026 10:20 AM Jan 7, 2026 2:12 PM

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EDWARDSVILLE – Rowan Weller led Edwardsville with 16 points, scoring key back-to-back baskets in the fourth quarter to hold off an O’Fallon rally as the Tigers turned back the Panthers 57-46 in a Southwestern Conference boys basketball game Tuesday night, Jan. 6, 2026, at Lucco-Jackson Gym.

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The Tigers were coming off a fifth-place finish at the Don Mauer Holiday Invitational tournament over the Christmas break at Mary Institute-Country Day School in Ladue, Mo., in suburban St. Louis, and Edwardsville head coach Dustin Battas felt excellent defense had much to do with the win.

“I thought our defense was excellent tonight,” Battas said. “We spent time after the MICDS tournament trying to improve our defense. I thought our guys carried it over into the game and limited them to 10 points in the first half. So you’ve got a lead, because your defense is good, and then, we got better in the third quarter, we scored 19 points, we executed our offense better in the second half, and I thought Rowan facilitated our offense very well.

"We want him to keep being aggressive, and not only get baskets for himself, but keep assisting and get other guys shots, and he was the key to a lot of that. I thought we did a great job of (Ben Akoro), he’s a big, really good player, and that took a conscious effort by Devyon (Hill-Lomax), Tucker (Lindstedt), and Max (McMicheal), and quick help from our other guys. And then, he’s a really good rebounder, so not only do you have to guard him, but once the shot goes up, you’ve got to make sure he doesn’t rebound, and I thought we did a good job, and credit to our guys for that effort.”

O’Fallon didn’t quit throughout the whole game and also had a good effort throughout. Battas praised the Panthers’ efforts.

“O’Fallon is a tough, competitive team,’ Battas said. “They’re going to win a lot of games this year, they’ve got some guys who can really do some things, and they’ve put you into some tough spots with their personnel, where coach (Brian) Muniz has the, and I thought they guarded us well. Their length gave us some problems early. So that’s a really good win for us. That’s a good team; it’s a conference game on a Tuesday night after a little bit of a layoff for us. So, overall, I’m really proud of our guys, and those Tuesday night conference wins, they really end up being big later in the season.”

Now that the new year has started, Battas is looking forward to good things ahead for his club.

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“We’re just going to keep getting better every day,” Battas said. “This is a good group of guys to be around. Our coaching staff enjoys being at practice every day, working with them. I think they’re starting to get more confident; some of the guys who are younger or new to some roles are getting comfortable in those roles, and there are signs of improvement. The defense, as I said, jumps off the page when I look at the box score, so we want to keep getting better, we want to make sure we value practice every day, because every game is going to be a hard one.”

Battas is indeed looking ahead to the second half of the campaign, and the good things it could bring to Edwardsville.

“Yeah, we have good guys, so that makes it enjoyable,” Battas said. “It’s a long season, it can be tough at times, but our job as coaches is to keep figuring out ways to get our guys to play better, and they’ve done a great job in just showing up and letting us pour into them.

"They do a good job about getting enthusiastic about practice, and take coaching well, and they’re really supportive of each other, which is important when you’ve got younger guys, and you’ve got some guys who are in new roles. I am just proud of the Tigers, and we look forward to going to Belleville East on Friday.”

Hill-Lomax hit the first basket of the game to put Edwardsville up 2-0, but then Jayden Dancy hit back-to-back to put O’Fallon ahead 4-2. That would be the only points scored by the Panthers in the opening period, as a three by Matthew Wildon triggered an 11-0 run for the Tigers the remainder of the term, as Weller and Miccah Butler also scored, and Wilson hit another three to put the Tigers up 13-4 after one quarter.

The Panthers started the second period with baskets by Akoro and Sutton Massey to come within 13-8, but the Tigers outscored O’Fallon the rest of the way 9-2, with Weller leading the way, and getting contributions from Butler and Brady Niemi to take a 22-10 lead into the interval.

In the third quarter, Massey and Wilson traded threes to give the Tigers a 25-13 advantage, with Hill-Lomax and Weller scoring to put Edwardsville ahead 29-15. The Tigers then extended their lead to 34-18, behind Butler and Niemi, with Weller eventually putting Edwardsville ahead 37-22. The Tigers led at the end of the period 41-28, and extended the lead to 49-31. The Panthers began to rally behind Massey and Dancy to cut the lead to 49-44 late, but Weller hit a bucket and then stole a pass and scored to make it 53-44 to all but end the rally. Free throws produced the 57-46 final for the Tigers.

Weller led Edwardsville with 16 points, while both Niemi and Wilson scored nine points each, Hill-Lomax had four points, and Sire Borden and Lindsted had two points each. Dancy led the Panthers with 19 points, with Massey adding 25 points, Akoro had eight points, and Maddox Blaha and Eddy Jackson scored two points each.

Edwardsville is now 10-4, and travels to Belleville East on Friday for a key SWC game, then hosts St. Louis Gateway STEM next Tuesday before having a rematch against an exceptional East St. Louis team Jan. 16, with all games starting at 7:30 p.m.

Dan Brannan also contributed to this story.