Shumate surprises DeKalb

In all the times DeKalb's coaches had seen Glenbard South play, they'd never seen Raiders point guard Ralondo Shumate as much of a scoring threat.

Until Friday.

The senior poured in five 3-pointers to score a personal-best 26 points in the Raiders' 82-73 Western Sun Conference victory in Glen Ellyn.

"We've seen him play a couple of times and we have not seen him shoot like that," DeKalb coach David Rohlman said. "We were aware of his quickness and we were very impressed with his defensive ability."

"The first half my teammates were giving me the ball and I was open," Shumate said of his 18-point half. "I was feeling pretty confident in my 3-point shot. I was just knocking them down. Coach decided to keep going to me. (Jordan) Harks and (Kevin) Marshall were posting up really well, spreading the defense out, and I got a couple of big shots."

Shumate couldn't miss. He hit 8 of 9 shots from the field and was 7 of 7 at the free-throw line. He also had 4 assists and a pair of steals.

"He's been solid," Raiders coach Wade Hardtke said. "Really, when he's able to score, that's a bonus for us. He does a great job handling the ballclub, he does a great job getting us into things. And then when he's able to score on top of it, it just makes him that much more important to us. And he carried us in the first half."

Harks, the Raiders' leading scorer this season, also had 26.

Glenbard South (6-1, 3-1) gradually built a 21-point lead on a couple of Harks free throws midway through the third quarter.

DeKalb (2-5, 2-1) whittled the Raiders' lead down to 7 in the final minute, but the Raiders made just enough plays down the stretch to hang on.

"We played smart and great defense, but we let up a couple of big rebounds and they started coming back," Shumate said. "But we kind of got our heads together and got under control and played pretty good basketball."

"We just got to continue getting better, keep learning," Hardtke said. "Even though we're heavy on seniors, we've still got some learning to do, and at this point it's learning how to close out games. But we're getting there."

DeKalb's 6-foot-11 junior, Jordan Threloff, scored 31 points, grabbed 12 rebounds and blocked 4 shots.

"He's pretty hard to stop, but we tried our best," Shumate said.

"He's a tough matchup, especially when they're able to walk us up the lane like they did and go over the top on us," Hardtke said. "He definitely is able to change things up."