Meadows' Shewmon makes most of his chances

Second chances gave Rolling Meadows junior Scott Shewmon an extended chance to play in Wednesday night's nonconference boys basketball game with visiting Round Lake.

The 6-foot-5 junior had a double-double 3:37 before halftime and finished with career highs of 12 points and 16 rebounds as Meadows (9-14) pulled away in the second half to a 69-41 victory.

"They just weren't boxing out very well and I tried to get in there and get any offensive rebounds," Shewmon said of 10 on the offensive end leading to 10 of his points. "Usually I don't get a lot of minutes but I took advantage of them."

Shewmon also provided a spark with 7 points in a 13-0 run which gave the Mustangs a 16-6 lead. He had 12 of their 23-3 first-half rebounding advantage.

"He did a great job," said Meadows coach Kevin Katovich after his team outrebounded Round Lake 39-14 overall and 21-1 offensively. "He plays with such confidence in JV games and tonight he played with confidence in a varsity game. He's capable of doing this."

Round Lake (2-22) came out in a box-and-1 with Jon Martinez on Meadows scoring leader Richie Kemph. After missing 4 of his first 5 shots, Kemph got rolling to a game-high 21 points.

Jimmy Garoppolo added 14 points and sophomore point guard Brian Nelms had 8 points, 8 assists and 7 rebounds.

"The second half we really shut them down with our defense," Shewmon said of breaking away from a 38-27 lead. "We didn't want to let them hang around."

Round Lake, coming off a tough 64-61 loss to Wheeling on Tuesday night, shot 45.5 percent from the field (15-for-33) as sophomore Juddon Carter had 16 points and Martinez added 12. But it had 31 turnovers converted into 29 points without sophomore point guard Daniel Uriostegui (illness) in its 16th straight loss.

"We've been getting off to good starts a lot," said Round Lake coach Howard Kravets, "but part of it is people see our record and it's hard to get up for us emotionally.

"I thought we lost the game in the second quarter. We were in it but you can't give them four and five chances.

"We're very young and we played hard. It wasn't for a lack of effort."