Alton Redbirds Advance to Regional Championship After Win Over O’Fallon

Alton shot 23-of-26 from the free throw line against the Panthers including an impressive 11-of-11 in the fourth quarter.

Bradley Piros, Reporter

Feb 26, 2026 7:12 AM Feb 26, 2026 5:24 PM

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O’FALLON – The O’Fallon Township High School boys basketball team hadn’t won a game on its home floor in 40 days.

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The Panthers looked to put an end to that streak when they hosted the Alton Redbirds in an IHSA Class 4A regional semifinal Wednesday night at OTHS.

But it wasn’t to be as Alton won 64-46, handing O’Fallon its seventh straight loss to end the season at 8-22. The Redbirds improved to 20-11 on the year and advanced to the O’Fallon Regional championship game on Friday, February 27 against Belleville East at 7 p.m.

The No. 7-seeded Lancers upset their cross-town rivals, No. 2-seeded Belleville West, in the other semifinal by a score of 40-35.

Alton head coach Dylan Dudley and his coaching staff watched that game unfold before their game against O’Fallon but didn’t get too caught up in the upset.

“I think kids know,” Dudley said. “But at this time of the year, I don’t care who you play, where you play, we’re just fortunate. We always talk about this time of year; we just want to get to the next day’s practice.”

Alton has one day’s time before playing in their second straight regional championship. Last year the regional games were hosted by Alton, and it won a thriller over Edwardsville 55-47 for its first regional crown since 2019 in coach Eric Smith’s final season.

“It did take us a while to find some footing,” Dudley said. “We were fortunate to win a regional last year, so our kids have some experience playing in these moments, but the first game is always the hardest.”

The Panthers opened Wednesday’s game on a 7-2 run, capped off by Jayden Dancy’s three-pointer. O’Fallon remained in control after the first quarter 11-8.

Four of those first seven points were scored by Ben Akoro, who ended the night leading all scorers with 23 points.

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The second quarter was all Alton, however. It opened on an eight-point run that put them ahead at 16-11, forcing O’Fallon into a timeout with 3:50 remaining in the half.

After the break, Semaj Stampley and Josh Lumpkins knocked down back-to-back threes to increase the lead. The Redbirds led 24-15 at halftime and from then on were never in any real danger.

O’Fallon tried to slow down the possessions in the second half and took advantage of the final postseason before the IHSA initiates a state-wide 35-second shot clock next season.

The Panthers held onto the ball but didn’t have much to show for it. Alton grew its lead to 45-28 after three quarters.

“We knew eventually someone was going to try and hold the ball on us,” Dudley said. “We knew eventually somebody was going to try and play a junk defense on us, we’d seen a junk defense a couple of times, but knock on wood, I think it’s pretty hard to play a junk defense on us with this year’s team because we’ve got some guys that can do some damage.”

One of those guys was Stampley, who led his team with 16 points. O’Bryant Brown scored 15 points, Ryan Howard scored 10, Tysean Jones had nine, and Lumpkins had seven.

“Great response by OB,” Dudley said. “OB’s been through it. He had to sit out a couple of games, some things he did, some things that were brought to him that he didn’t handle right, he’d be the first one to tell you.”

Alton suffered a rough stretch that started 20 days ago at home in a loss against Edwardsville. It started a four-game skid with a next-day loss to Vashon in the Bank of O’Fallon Shootout and then two more Southwestern Conference losses to Belleville West and East St. Louis.

But the Redbirds climbed out of it with a win over Normal Community at another shootout in Teutopolis and back-to-back wins over O’Fallon and Belleville East to close out the regular season.

“That was very important,” Brown said. “We had multiple talks privately and with the team. We had to get out of that slump, and we got out of it by hard practices. We needed that for this last run in the postseason.”

“I’m just proud of our kids for taking a punch, and they took some punches there,” Dudley said. “I had to be better for them. I take full responsibility for it. I wasn’t tough enough on them, I didn’t help them enough, but to see them bounce back, we’re getting better, that’s the key.”