O’FALLON – Alton Redbirds baseball dodged a bullet from Bethalto to extend its season-opening win streak to eight in succession.

Unfortunately for the Redbirds, the O’Fallon Panthers rarely fire and miss.

O’Fallon erased Alton’s early three-run lead with four runs in the fourth and finished off a 5-4 Southwestern Conference victory Tuesday at Blazier Field. It was the SWC opener for both teams.

“It was a solid effort,” Alton coach Todd Haug said. “Two good teams playing today. In a game where you need to come up with a big pitch, big play, big hit, more of those fell (O’Fallon’s) way today. It is what it is. We’ll move forward.”

The Redbirds, who rallied from a 5-0 deficit to beat Civic Memorial in their last time out Saturday, drop to 8-1 and 0-1 in the conference. O’Fallon is 8-1 and 1-0 in the conference while pushing its winning streak to six in a row.

“It was a hard-fought battle,” Haug said. “We’ll see them again.”

Since Alton handed O’Fallon its only two SWC defeats in a 12-2 run to a league title in 2011, the Panthers have won 11 of their last 12 dates with the Redbirds.

O’Fallon is the defending SWC champion and has won the conference in five of the last seven seasons. The Panthers are a popular pick to repeat in 2017, though Haug will leave that labeling to the media.

“If you guys want to say they’re the favorite, that’s fine,” Haug said. “For us, we have to have a purpose in coming out to play. I’m sure Edwardsville and East and West, nobody’s going to anoint anybody after one game. We’re going to keep putting our work boots on and going to work and we’ll see what’s going on in mid-May.”

Alton outhit O’Fallon 8-4, but eight walks and two errors doomed the Redbirds. All five Panthers runs were unearned. O’Fallon also labored at times in the field, with three of Alton’s runs coming unearned.

“That’s going to happen from time to time,” said O’Fallon coach Jason Portz, who is 410-131 in his 15th season at his alma mater. “(Alton’s) a scrappy club. You’ve got to give them credit. Their ability to hit the away pitch and hit with two strikes, they did some things really good.”

Alton’s Tyler Moxey had two hits before leaving the game with an injury sustained running the bases in the sixth inning. The Redbirds scored twice in the first inning and Steven Pattan’s two-out RBI single extended the lead to 3-0 in the third.

But O’Fallon plated four runs on one hit, four walks and a Redbirds error in the fourth inning. Another Alton error gifted O’Fallon a two-out run in the fifth to make it 5-3.

But the Redbirds continued to fight, cutting the margin to 5-4 in the sixth inning. Alton had the tying run on second base with one out in both the sixth and seventh innings, but could not break through against Panthers’ reliever Brayden Arnold.

“I was pretty happy with how we played,” Portz said. “There are some things we can do better. By the middle of April and early May, I think we’re going to be able to.”

Hayden Juenger started and got the win for O’Fallon, giving four runs on seven hits, two walks and six strikeouts. Arnold, who had two hits and two RBIs, earned the save.

Alton’s Charlie Erler took the loss. The starter went 3 1/3 innings, giving four runs (zero earned) on two hits, six walks and two strikeouts.

“I’m proud of our boys,” Haug said. “We stayed in it, we battled and we gave them a finish, we were in a position to tie the ballgame. Just didn’t get the big hit, but that’s OK. … Very young team, but they’re going to battle.

“We’re going to learn from this. One day at a time. That’s the beauty of this team, we haven’t read too much into our start. We can play with anybody and we will play with anybody. We’ll bounce back and be ready for East on Thursday.”

Alton plays at Belleville East on Thursday, while O’Fallon goes to Collinsville to close the first week of Tuesday-Thursday clashes in the SWC.

“The Southwestern Conference is a grind,” Portz said. “To face Alton right away and hand them their first loss, I think that says a lot about our club. … The goal is to come out here and win. We got a 5-4 win and we’ll be happy to move on to Thursday and try to get another conference win.

“I don’t care how you get conference wins in our league, if you get them, no matter how you get them, you want to take them from there and just move on.”