Glenbard South 59, Geneva 58

First Glenbard South junior Ralondo Shumate gave his boys basketball team a lift. Then the Raiders and their fans returned the favor.

Shumate's 2 free throws with 12.3 seconds to play boosted the Raiders to a thrilling 59-58 Western Sun Conference victory against Geneva on Friday night in Glen Ellyn.

Geneva (4-2, 1-1) had one last shot, but it hit off the rim, the Raiders' Sam Mitchell clutched the rebound at the buzzer, then they celebrated by lifting the 5-foot-5 Shumate to their shoulders at midcourt.

"It feels good," Shumate said. "It feels real good."

It feels especially good to the Raiders (3-2, 1-1), who already are just two wins shy of last year's total.

"It feels great," said second-year Glenbard South coach Wade Hardtke. "The kids really over the summer -- and the tail end of last year -- started buying into the program, understanding what we were trying to get done. They kept that going through the summer. The kids have been working hard and playing hard. Every day in practice is a battle, kind of like what you saw out here."

The Raiders got a fast start, jumping out to a 21-9 lead after one quarter on a Shumate 3-pointer at the buzzer.

"We just need to start playing a little bit harder," Geneva coach Tim Pease said. "The first quarter was something that wasn't very pretty to watch. Take that away and we played a decent game on the road over here."

But Pease's teams are built for comebacks, with a frenetic, attacking style of play and a mean trapping defense. They didn't disappoint, cutting the Glenbard South lead to 3 at halftime and tying the game at 34 on a Jeremy D'Amico lay-in midway through the third quarter. They finally took their first lead with 6:43 to go in the fourth quarter on a pair of Max Cary free throws.

"I knew that our kids weren't going to lie down, I knew they were going to come back," Pease said. "We just wanted to start that process a little bit sooner, like when we got off the bus."

The teams fought tooth and nail down the stretch, with Geneva taking its last lead on a pair of D'Amico free throws with 33.0 seconds to play. That set up Shumate's heroics.

"I was pretty nervous because I missed my first five (free throws), they went in and out," Shumate said. "But I had to get focused and knock them down for the team."

It didn't help that he was playing on a wobbly ankle he injured and had to get taped earlier in the game. He was still limping afterward.

"Ralondo went down in the fourth quarter with his ankle, really kind of a gutsy performance there," Hardtke said. "He stepped up down the stretch."