GODFREY – Collinsville boys basketball coach Darin Lee is already a member of the Illinois Basketball Coaches Association Hall of Fame.

The Kahoks are doing their part to send Alton coach Eric Smith there.

The Redbirds pushed their record vs. Collinsville to 12-1 with Smith as coach after Alton fended off the Kahoks 81-75 in overtime Friday night in a Southwestern Conference game at Alton High.

The Redbirds, who have won their last 11 meetings with the Kahoks, improve to 6-1 and 4-0 in the SWC. Collinsville erased a seven-point deficit with 1:15 left in the fourth quarter to force OT, but fell to 4-5 and 0-4 in the league.

Collinsville’s Marshall Harrison hit a top of the key 3-pointer off an inbounds play with five seconds left in regulation to draw the Kahoks even and bring a four-minute overtime.

But a Donovan Clay 3-pointer and a Kevin Caldwell Jr., drive to the rim in transition put the Redbirds up five points in the first minute of OT and the Kahoks could not keep pace. Alton opened the door to a comeback by sending Collinsville to the foul line 12 times – it made 11 – in the final three minutes of the fourth quarter with the Redbirds unrelentingly pushing the pace with a lead.

But the tempo and Alton aggression – “We like a frenetic pace,” Smith said – that provided opportunity for the Kahoks in the final four minutes of the fourth quarter buried them in the four-minute OT that saw the Redbirds score 15 points.

“In our opinion, we have to play a certain style to be competitive, to keep our kids competitive,” Smith said. “We’re not a walk it up and stand in a 2-3 and try to do different things – we may have to do some of that stuff to stay in games – but that’s not us. We have to play a certain way.”

Smith remains 300 wins and 14 seasons shy of Hall of Fame eligibility, but the sixth-year Redbirds coach did reach a milestone with career victory No. 100. Smith joins Stan McAfoos (209 wins), Ralph Sterrett (140) and Lee Bennett (100) in a 100-wins club limited to four coaches in Redbirds history.

The importance of 100 to Smith is well short of profound – “Nothing,” he said of its meaning – but his place alongside those three other AHS coaches is embraced. “When I got here, just looking at the Hall of Fame and all the people that have gotten in, it’s a pretty big deal,” Smith said.

Alton, which is back home Tuesday for a SWC game with Belleville East, was in tight with Collinsville throughout. Lee, who remains eight victories shy of 600 in a prep coaching career split between Vienna, Nashville and Collinsville, had four sophomores on the court for stretches, but the Kahoks refused to back off.

Ray’Sean Taylor, a 6-foot soph, led the Kahoks with 31 points, including a 13-for-14 performance from the foul line after halftime. Braden Lamp, the lone senior in a seven-player rotation, scored 16 points for Collinsville.

Alton, which trailed by as many as five points in the second quarter and led by as many as seven points in the third, got another big night from Caldwell. He scored 29 points on 9 of 14 shooting from the field, including 4 of 8 from the arc.

“He does a lot of things out on the court for us,” Smith said. “The nice part about it, in my humble opinion, the reason we’re successful is that we have someone like Kevin and we have other kids who do a lot of things, too. We put some pretty good kids out on the floor around him.”

Just four Redbirds scored in the victory, but all were in double figures. Malik Smith scored 21 points, Donovan Clay had 17 and Josh Rivers had 14 off the bench for Alton. Other than Caldwell, the Redbirds were 5 of 21 from 3-point range. But both Malik Smith and Clay knocked down treys in vital possessions.

“We’re not bad shooters,” Smith said. “Our percentage is not really good right now, as a team, but we’ll get to a point when we start making 3s and we’ll be dangerous. We’ve can put five kids out there that can make that shot consistently. But it’s nice to see we can win without relying on that.”

ALTON 81, COLLINSVILLE 75 (OT)

Collinsville 14 13 15 24 (9) — 75

Alton 13 16 16 21 (15) — 81

Collinsville (4-5, 0-4) – Taylor 31, Lamp 16, Harrison 8, Molton 9, Jones 7, Baker 2, Smith 2.

Alton (6-1, 4-0) – Caldwell Jr. 29, M. Smith 21, Clay 17, Rivers 14.