Shenandoah fourth quarter dooms Rams in loss

Shenandoah out-scored Glenwood 16-9 in the fourth quarter to pull out a 58-57 upset Friday in Hawkeye 10 Conference boys basketball.

Jake Lewis led Glenwood (9-6 overall, 4-3 in the conference) with 18 points and 10 rebounds. Braden Wheeler added 16 and Dylan Stouder 11.

Glenwood 82,
Red Oak 55

Points in the paint isn’t a statistic typically tracked in your average high school basketball stat book.

After Glenwood’s performance Tuesday, perhaps it should be.

The Rams used its size and fast-paced offense in transition to get layup after layup in an 82-55 dismantling of Red Oak before a reporter-estimated crowd of 400 in Glenwood.

“Layups always help your shooting percentage,” said Glenwood coach Curt Schulte after the game. “I don’t know what we shot but I thought Drew Konfrst and Jake Lewis had really nice games for us and Dylan (Stouder) really had some nice moments. Our post players really had a nice game.”

Konfrst, Lewis and Stouder combined for 40 points,  most coming on layups or at the free throw line as the smaller Red Oak frontcourt (which had just one starter over 6-feet) struggled to contain the Rams inside.

From the start, Glenwood was determined to avoid slow starts that resulted in two straight losses last week. The Rams had nothing of that against the Tigers, scoring the game’s first eight points and rolling out to a 15-2 start and a 21-6 lead at the 1:57 mark of the first quarter.

“Our kids are competitors. They were upset about the weekend, there’s no doubt about it. They were upset and they were ready to play. I could tell in practice Monday we were going to come out with fire and play a good ball game. I could see it in their eyes. It was a great game to bounce back on. We just have to keep it rolling.”

A quick 15-2 run to open the game was exactly the start the Rams needed and Schulte hoped for.

“That’s key,” he said. “We talked about that coming out of the locker room. The last two games we haven’t gotten good starts. Our first quarters, we’ve struggled. St. Albert was a slow start and Harlan was a slow start. We really emphasized that at practice yesterday and before the game: getting out of the gates and getting things done right away and playing a full 32 minute game.”

Glenwood led by as many as 25 in the first half and nursed a 46-23 lead at intermission.

All night, the constantly switching Ram defense seemed to confound the Tigers.

“We tried to mix things up on them a little bit,” Schulte said. We threw a 1-2-2 press at them, a little 1-2-1-1, some man-to-man and some zone sprinkled in. We just wanted to give them different looks and improve in those facets of the game.”

The Rams’ lead swelled to as many as 29 points in the second half before Schulte pulled his starters with three minutes to go.

Gage Shatava led the Rams with 20 points. Lewis added 18, Konfrst 13 and Stouder and Cole Kennedy nine each.

Schulte said to have injured senior Corey Bertini back on the bench, in uniform, was a nice addition to his team’s chemistry.

Ryan Leininger led Red Oak with 28 points. Jordan Nelson chipped in 16.