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.