EAST ALTON — With 7:04 remaining in Tuesday’s prep hockey game against Belleville, the Alton Redbirds appeared to have struck on the perfect recipe for a much-needed victory. They had just taken a 3-1 lead and found themselves with a power play opportunity following a penalty against Belleville.

But what Belleville cooked up from that point left a bad taste in the Redbirds’ mouths.

Belleville scored a pair of short-handed goals on that Alton power play, tying the game 3-3. That set up a game-winning goal by Anthony Pellegrino. An empty-net goal with 12.8 seconds left made it a 5-3 final on Alton’s Senior Night at the East Alton Ice Arena.

“It’s a funny thing in this league,” Alton coach Abram Henson said. “The team that has the power play often gets outplayed. Playing down a man does that. We didn’t react well to being a man up.”

Indeed. The result leaves both teams at 8-8 on the season as the Mississippi Valley Club Hockey Association gets ready to re-seed the teams for the final stretch of the season. With five games remaining, the league will divide the one-class schedule into a two-class one. The top six teams in the standings will be classified as 2A teams, while the bottom six will be classified as 1A. The teams will then finish the regular season and begin the playoffs.

“I’m not sure where we will be,” Henson said. “We’re right there on the bubble with (Belleville). And with head-to-head is the tiebreaker, we might be 1A.

“I’d rather play 2A, but that’s me. You want to play against the top competition every time out. I know Edwardsville (15-0) is going to be a heavy favorite in 2A. We’ve never been 1A before, but we’ll play where they tell us.”

Henson had more on his mind than just losing the game Tuesday. The Redbirds also may have lost senior forward and team captain Jake Bohn, who suffered a clavicle injury in the first period.

“It looks like it may be broken,” Henson said of the injury. “He has done it before, so he’s pretty sure about it (being broken). He’s having it checked out now and we’ll know for sure.”

Beside being outshot by Belleville, the Redbirds held their own through more than two-thirds of the game – until the short-handed goals by Belleville.

“(Belleville) had a much deeper bench to begin with,” Henson said. “We kind of wore down. But really, I thought it was a good game. We just came up short.”

Scotty Waldrup gave Alton a 1-0 lead with an unassisted goal late in the first period. The Redbirds led 1-0 after the first period, despite being outshot 14-8.

In the second period, Brandon Lang gave Alton a 2-0 lead. He redirected a shot by teammate Mark Vitali in midair, just in front of the Belleville goal. Tanner St. Peters also had an assist on the play. The Redbirds held that 2-0 lead heading into the third period, even though they were being outshot at that point 21-14.

“Caleb (Currie) did a good job in goal,” Henson said of the Alton goalie. “He saw a lot of shots and he was able to stop most of them.”

Belleville’s Garret Dahm scored with 12:35 left to make it 2-1. But Alton’s Zack Hunter got that goal back when he scored with 8:11 remaining. And after Belleville’s Zach Gamblin was sent off with a penalty at the 7:04 mark, things looked good for Alton.

Not for long.

Pellegrino scored shorthanded from a Dahm assist at 6:33 to make it 3-2. Then, 17 seconds later, Dahm scored unassisted to tie it 3-3 and set up Pellegrino’s late-game heroics, which gave Belleville a 4-3 lead. Dahm scored into an empty net to cap the scoring in the final seconds.

Reach Pete Hayes at 463-2500 or Twitter @HayeserPete