White leads East St. Louis past Belleville West, but ejection leaves Flyers short
East St. Louis senior power forward/center Jamison White, at 6-foot-8, is a matchup headache for opposing teams.
On Friday night, the Flyers’ big man gave Belleville West the blues, pouring in a game-high 29 points and powering East St. Louis to a 74-63 Southwestern Conference win over a gritty Belleville West club at East St. Louis High School.
White is the son of former Cardinal Ritter and Georgetown star Jahidi White, who also had a seven-year NBA career. He was glad to help his team improve to 5-0 in conference play.
“I just think we played together tonight and I think that’s what’s working for us at the end of the day,” White said.
White keyed a 7-0 run with a three-pointer as the Flyers surged to a 20-9 lead, forcing a Belleville West timeout late in the first quarter.
West pulled within 30-25 on a J’Dyn Lloyd jumper with 2:44 left in the second period, but White answered with a spinning layup at the other end, kickstarting an 8-1 run that gave East St. Louis (15-1) a 38-26 halftime advantage.
White started strong, scoring 14 points in the first quarter.
“I think teams try to stop me mostly on the inside, but that’s where I get my advantage and just try to use that to my benefit,” White said. “I try to let it come to me tonight and not rush it.”
East St. Louis continued to roll in the second half, pushing the lead to 53-40 after three quarters.
Flyers coach Mark Chambers was pleased with his club’s performance as Phillip Jones, Alex Johnson and Terry’yon Webster stepped up with 16 points, nine points and nine points, respectively.
“We played a decent game tonight and we played about as good as we could under the circumstances,” Chambers said.
Belleville West (9-6, 2-3) never got closer than 11 points in the fourth quarter.
Despite the road loss, West coach Alex Schobert was pleased with his team’s hard-nosed performance.
“I told our team I’m very proud of the way they competed tonight,” Schobert said. “I thought we played very tough most of the game but we’ve just got to play smarter. A lot of times we would cut it to single digits and then come down and make a silly mistake and stop our momentum. I thought that was the difference in the game.”
Lloyd paced Belleville West with a team-high 30 points.
The game was marred late by an on-court altercation with 2:44 left, when Lloyd got into a shoving match with an East St. Louis player.
When order was restored by officials, West’s Micah May was ejected along with two East St. Louis players, including White.
Chambers was upset afterwards about White’s ejection, which caused him to miss Saturday’s matchup with Principia in the Highland Shootout. Without White, East Side fell, 88-54.
“He got kicked out on a play where he didn’t do anything,” Chambers said Friday. “He got kicked out and I got another player kicked out and I gotta watch film to see what happened. Now we have to go play the number two team in the country tomorrow without our best player over some crap.
“The way that we’re treated here in East St. Louis in this conference is horrible, and I’m going to leave it at that.”
East St. Louis will play nationally ranked Principia on Saturday in the Highland Shootout at 6 p.m.
Belleville West returns to action Tuesday with a 7:30 p.m. conference tilt at O’Fallon.
This story was originally published January 10, 2026 at 7:35 AM.