Redbirds Fall To East Side In Battle Between Conference Unbeatens

The SWC rematch will be on Friday, Februaury 13 in Alton. It will be the Redbirds' final home game of the season.

Jan 7, 2026 10:23 AM

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EAST ST. LOUIS – The Alton Redbirds traveled to East St. Louis to take on the red-hot Flyers on Tuesday in a pivotal Southwestern Conference clash.

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Both teams entered the game with perfect 3-0 SWC records, but it was the home team that remained flawless, winning a nail-biter by a score of 87-84.

After losing their first game of the season, the Flyers have since won 14 straight and are off to one of their best starts since the 2011-12 season, when they opened at 14-2.

It was the seventh time this season that East St. Louis has scored 80-plus points, a team that’s averaging slightly above 75 points per night in offense.

However, it was also the most points the Flyers have given up all season, by a long shot. East Side lost its season-opener 68-62. Since then, it has held its opponents to an average of 50 PPG.

“It was a good game overall,” East St. Louis head coach Mark Chambers said. “Defensively, we didn’t play well. We want to score that many points, but we don’t want to give up that many.”

“We made a lot of bonehead plays there. This was probably our worst game we’ve played all year, and to come out with a win, I’ll take it,” Chambers said. “Even the game we lost, I felt we played better defensively.”

On the other side, Alton was prepared for that kind of game, high-octane, not much-defending basketball.

“They just don’t play any defense, and that’s not me trying to take a shot; that’s just the reality of the matter,” Alton head coach Dylan Dudley said. “We saw it in the first half. We’re shooting layups because they’re just running three guys back, and that’s what they do. And again, that’s how they want to play. We have to be good enough to overcome how they play, and tonight we weren’t.”

Because of this, both teams came out guns-a-blazing. The first quarter saw nine lead changes, but they were all knotted up at 22 after eight minutes.

That tide turned in the second quarter. The Flyers opened up on an 11-4 run to take a 33-26 lead, forcing Alton into a timeout with 4:13 left in the half. That lead grew to as much as 11 points at 46-35 after a three-point play from Devin Houston.

Alton closed the gap thanks to back-to-back baskets from O’Bryant Brown and Ryan Howard, but still trailed 48-39 at halftime.

The Redbirds got a basket from Howard and a three-pointer from Jamarion Green to open up the second half and close the gap to 48-44. After a quick timeout, Green answered a Flyers basket with another triple to make it 50-47.

Shortly after this play, two East Side players – Jamison White and Terri’yon Webster – as well as Alton’s Green were all given technical fouls after a baseline scuffle. From then on, both teams were getting into foul trouble.

Green picked up his fourth personal and had to be taken out with just over five minutes to go in the third quarter. But that didn’t slow Alton down.

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After Green’s foul, Alton flipped the script with a 13-8 run to tie the game up at 60. The spark came from Semaj Stampley’s triple. Brown cashed in a three, as did Josh Lumpkins. Howard and Green’s big-man replacement, Jerry Brandon, each added baskets during that stretch.

It forced the Flyers into a full timeout with 2:02 remaining in the third. Out of the break, East Side went on a blistering 8-2 run to take command again. After battling back to tie the game, Alton still trailed after three quarters, 68-64.

“I just didn’t think we did a very good job in transition, of just squaring the ball up,” Dudley said. “You’ve got to win the first step. And it’s easier said than done, but there’s no excuse. We just gave up too many layups. The outcome sucks.”

Brown scored to open the fourth, but it was quickly answered by a three-pointer from White to make it 71-66. East Side pulled away to a 10-point lead at 83-73, but Stampley drilled a three to breathe life for the Redbirds with 65 seconds left in the game.

Coming out of a timeout, Alton went on a 6-2 run to make it 85-82, but with the Flyers in the bonus, Phillip Jones sank two free throws at the other end.

On the final inbound of the game, the ball came to Howard on the wing, who went up for a contested three and was fouled. He made the first two foul shots to make it 87-84 before Alton called a timeout with 5.2 seconds left. Howard needed to intentionally miss his last free throw in hopes of kicking it out for a three.

The plan almost worked, the ball bouncing off the back of the rim, but Alton wasn’t able to control it as time expired.

“It’s a play that we practice, and to be honest, we got what we wanted,” Dudley said. “We just didn’t execute the final part of the play. You’ve got to be tough enough to make those plays.”

“That was a hell of a high school basketball game, that’s two high-level teams playing right there,” Dudley added.

Howard led all scorers with 24 points. Stampley added 21, O’Bryant had 18, and Green had 10 for the Redbirds.

White, soon to be a Penn State Nittany Lion, led the Flyers with 22 points. Houston scored 20 points, Alex Johnson had 19, and Jones had 11.

After going 2-2 in the Centralia Holiday Tournament, this is now Alton’s third straight loss, falling to 8-6 on the season and 3-1 in the SWC.

The next two weeks will decide the Redbirds’ conference fate as they host three straight against O’Fallon, Belleville East, and Collinsville.

“You’ve got to be able to bounce back. Our kids will be mentally tough,” Dudley said. “We’ve played in these environments before; we’ve played in big games like this before. We’ve won big games. We also know how to give ourselves a chance to win the conference championship.”

“But no disrespect to the conference, we’re trying to get ready for late February and early March. That’s what this program’s built on,” Dudley continued. “We didn’t do a good enough job tonight; we lost to a good team. We had a chance to win the game, and we’ve got to figure out a way to win the game.”