Belleville West off to best start in six years after dominating win over Alton

Belleville West wanted a fast start heading into Friday night’s Southwestern Conference opener with Alton at Bob Goalby Field.

The Maroons got that and more, scoring three first-quarter touchdowns and bolting to a 31-point halftime lead on their way to a 44-22 victory. The 3 hour, 43-minute game was halted by a one hour, six-minute lightning delay after halftime.

Delay or no delay, it was another good night for the Maroons, who moved to 3-1 (1-0) and is off to their best start since going 5-0 in 2018.

“We’re starting to get our culture in, which started with our offseason. They understand what we want,” West coach Ken Turner said. “We’ve still got a ways to go and we’re winning and we want to win the right way. Our goal now is to play more disciplined and get better and better each week.”

West came out clicking on its opening drive as quarterback Bernard Chapman III hit Michale Sutton with a 21-yard touchdown pass. Next, it was the special team’s turn to get in on the scoring as the Maroons blocked a punt and returned it 14 yards for a touchdown.

Just before the end of the first quarter, West’s passing game struck again as Chapman hooked up with wideout Deshaun Gage on a 22-yard fade pass, for a score, pushing the lead to 21-0.

Chapman’s third touchdown pass of the night, a 27-yard strike to Nick Hankins, made it 28-yard with 11:53 left in the first half.

“We had a great week of practice and we just feel like we had to make a statement from last year and improve,” Chapman said. “The goal was to be consistent and to keep moving the sticks.

“It’s a great feeling to know that you’re doing stuff right.”

A 28-yard field goal by Jack Harris and an 11-yard Isiah Williams touchdown run stretched the lead to 37-0.

Winless Alton (0-4, 0-1) broke the Maroons shutout bid with a touchdown on a 36-yard Riley Smith to Travis Billups pass in the final 25 seconds of the half.

That gave way to the 66-minute lightning delay after the 15-minute halftime. The delay forced West to reset and refocus on handling business in the second half.

“It was a little bit rough but for a little bit, but we just had to get back into the swing of things. For the most part everybody just had to get back into a little bit of a rhythm from the first half,” Chapman said.

That didn’t take long for Williams, who ripped off s 64-yard for a touchdown with 7:29 left in the third quarter to make it 44-6.

A 29-yard Semaj Stampley touchdown reception and an 11-yard Hassani Elliott scoring run against the Maroons backup defense in the fourth quarter rounded out the scoring for the night.

“I’ve got to get my backups a little bit better and getting them better is a part of the job,” Turner said.

Turner was happy with the overall performance.

“I’m proud of the guys to start the conference off 1-0 with a sound win,” Turner said. “For two weeks in a row we scored a lot of points and we’re going to carry that into a pretty big game next week.”

Belleville West will face its stiffest test to date next week with a conference road game at Edwardsville next Friday at 7 p.m.

In other area action, Althoff traveled to Tolono Unity and stayed undefeated at 4-0 with a 53-52 win. O’Fallon lost at Edwardsville 46-10.