GRANITE CITY — While Alton’s early success from beyond the three-point arc gave rival Edwardsville some concern, it may have ultimately cost the Redbirds.

Alton flirted with the Tigers in spurts Friday night, but top-ranked Edwardsville kept the redbirds at bay and grabbed a 66-53 victory in the championship game of the Granite City Class 4A Regional Tournament at Granite City High School.

“(Alton) has so many different guys who were making threes for them,” EHS coach mike Waldo said. “It gives you something to be concerned with, yes. Alton is a hard team to defend anyway, but that can make it more difficult.”

While Alton coach Eric Smith agreed that there were indeed several Redbirds draining treys early, he thought that overall his team relied on them too much.

“We shot too many threes,” smith said. “For you to be successful against (Edwardsville), you have got to be patient. we’ve preached that every chance we have had.”

The victory for the 29-1 Tigers means a date with Southwestern Conference rival Belleville West Tuesday in a semifinal of the Ottawa 4A Sectional. That game will be played at Collinsville High School. West handed the Tigers their only defeat this season, 59-53 on Dec. 3 at SIUE. West’s Maroons advanced by beating East St. Louis 67-60 Friday in the final of the Belleville East Regional.

Edwardsville led most of the way after the teams traded baskets early. The Tigers led 22-16 at the end of the first quarter. The Redbirds would have been two points closer if not for Edwardsville only trey of the quarter – a 60-foot heave at the buzzer by Jack Marinko.

In the first quarter, the Redbirds make 12 of their points from beyond the arc on two treys by Donovan Clay and two by Kevin Caldwell Jr.

“That’s what I mean,” Smith said, referring to the treys in the first quarter. “We made four treys, but we were still behind by six points at the end of the first quarter.

Alton’s Damion Reid came off the bench and made a pair of treys in the second quarter, the second of which got the Redbirds within three points at 25-22 with 7:03 left until halftime.

Ty’ohn Trimble made another three-pointer that tied the game 27-27. The only other basket by Alton in the quarter was a rebound basket by Maurice Edwards.

Donovan Clay led Alton with 12 points. Reid added 11 and Trimple scored 10.

Edwardsville, on the other hand was making baskets the old-fashioned way – and the points kept piling up. AJ Epenesa, who led the way with 24 points, had 18 at halftime.

EHS’s Mark Smith scored 13 points, 11 of them in the second half.

After Trimble’s three-pointer tied it at 27-27, the Tigers got a dunk from Epenesa, a trey from Caleb Strohmeier and a pair of free throws from Mark Smith to finish the half in a 7-0 run.

In the second half, the Tigers steadily pulled away. They extended the lead to 11 points at 47-36 heading to the fourth quarter and cruised.

“Alton and their coaches did a tremendous job this year,” Edwardsville’s Waldo said. “They had adversity with missing kids with injuries, but they kept fighting and they played well. They are the kind of team that works hard the whole game and that’s why we had to concentrate on defending them.

“We didn’t want to give them any easy baskets and I thought we did a pretty good job of that since so many of their shots were threes.”

Smith, whose Redbirds finished 16-12 added, “Our kids competed all year. We really didn’t have any bad losses. Any team we lost to was a quality team.”