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.
