Three-point barrage lifts East St. Louis past cold shooting O’Fallon in SWC contest
The East St. Louis Flyers didn’t take it too kindly when the O’Fallon Panthers came ‘into their house’ three weeks ago and scored a five-point win.
On Friday, the defending Class 3A state champions returned the favor — and then some.
Seniors Armond Wiilliams and Leshawn Johnson combined for six of the Flyers 10 3-point baskets as East St. Louis rolled to a 67-45 Southwestern Conference win at the Panther Dome.
The Flyers (18-10, 6-5) wasted little time in taking control. With the 6-7 Williams and 6-8 Patrick Readye combining for 14 first quarter points, East St. Louis grabbed a 23-6 lead after one quarter.
O’Fallon (23-6, 7-3) would get no closer than seven points the rest of the night, as Williams (26 points) and Johnson (16) led the Flyers to the dominating win over one of the top Class 4A teams in Illinois.
“I usually don’t take that many 3-point shots. Usually I take maybe one or two a game. But tonight it felt good and they were going in,” Williams said. “We didn’t like that they (O’Fallon) came into our house and beat us. We wanted to do something about it.
“We played good tonight. But we’ve got more. There were some players on our bench that could have played better.”
The loss knocked O’Fallon out of a tie for the lead in the SWC, as Collinsville defeated Belleville West 49-43 on Friday to improve to 8-2 in league action. Both the Class 4A state-ranked Panthers and Kahoks close out their regular seasons next week with a pair of SWC games.
Ranked eighth in the Class 4A state poll, O’Fallon will host Edwardsville on Tuesday and Alton on Friday. Collinsville, ranked sixth in the Class 4A poll, hosts Belleville East on Tuesday and closes at East St. Louis on Friday. All four games start at 7:30 p.m.
All in all, on this night, the Flyers looked poised to make a long postseason run in defense of their state championship.
“I said earlier this year that we were not playing for November and December. We were playing for February and March. We’re getting focused for the postseason,” Flyers coach Mark Chambers said.
“This team has had to overcome some adversity. We have known all year that we are a good basketball team. Sometimes it takes overcoming adversity to make you realize how good you can be.”
Trailing by 17 points after one quarter, the Panthers opened the second period with a 10-0 spurt to close to within 23-16 as Chris Porter and Caleb Burton both hit 3-point shots.
But East St. Louis responded with a 14-7 run to end the half leading 37-23 at intermission and cruised from there. The Flyers biggest lead was 58-30 early in the fourth quarter.
O’Fallon welcomes the return of standout player
One high note for the Panthers was the return of leading scorer Shaun Riley II, who had been out since Jan. 31 with mononucleosis. Riley scored six points Friday.
But not even a healthy Riley could have saved O’Fallon on this night.
“They (East St. Louis) played very well and shot the ball well. But we didn’t help ourselves any,” Panthers coach Brian Muniz said. “We didn’t win many 50-50 balls and they got out to a huge lead on us early.
“By the time we figured it out it was too late.”
This story was originally published February 22, 2020 at 2:02 AM.
