Boys basketball: Darrell Island helps DeKalb claim 3rd straight DuPage Valley Conference title

DeKALB – With a 60-46 win over Naperville Central on Friday, the DeKalb boys basketball team bounced back from a tough loss in its last game and avenged a loss to the Redhawks from last month.

The Barbs also claimed at least a share of the DuPage Valley Conference title for the third year in a row.

“We were just grinding,” said junior Darrell Island, who scored 18 for the Barbs with eight rebounds and two steals. “We took too many L’s. L’s we weren’t even supposed to be taking at all. There have been four or five games we weren’t even supposed to lose, just us having a lack of sense on the court.”

Island said one of those games was the last time out against the Redhawks (19-7, 6-3 DVC), in which the Barbs (20-9, 7-2) led by 16 in the fourth quarter but lost. This time, they trailed most of the game, took the lead late in the third, and won going away, thanks to outscoring Naperville Central, 18-8, in the fourth quarter.

Naperville Central coach Pete Kramer said his team was pushing to much after the Redhawks fell behind in the third, shots stopped falling, and that led to struggles on the defensive end, as well.

“Just blank stares. We just couldn’t get it going,” Kramer said. “All we needed to get it going was a couple shots, and those shots didn’t fall.”

The Redhawks led as much as 21-11 in the first quarter and maintained a 31-27 lead at the half. Mantas Zilys opened the third quarter with two of his team-high 14 points, but the Barbs rolled off the next seven to take the lead.

The Redhawks answered with five straight points, but the 38-37 lead would be their last of the game. DeKalb scored the next nine, capped by a layup with 6:48 left from Demarrea Davis, who finished with eight points and a game-high 11 rebounds.

DeKalb’s lead never shrunk below six the rest of the way.

“The bottom line is we didn’t share the ball,” Kramer said. “We were trying to score off the dribble. We weren’t passing. We fell down a little bit and tried to get the lead back right away. And we’ve been a team that’s very composed down the stretch of games and taken care of things.”

Jonah Hinton added 11 for the Redhawks, while Lane McVicar added a game-best 20 for DeKalb to go with six boards.

Island set the pace early for the Barbs, turning a couple steals into layups and playing up-tempo to help spark the Barbs.

“We want him to push the pace and play fast,” DeKalb coach Mike Reynolds said. “I thought they backed off him, and instead of settling he got downhill which really hurt them. It’s hard to back off a guy that far that can handle it.”

The Barbs were coming off a 53-50 loss to Dixon on Saturday. They had won four straight before that, the prior loss coming in late January against the Redhawks.

“It kind of felt like we were in a slump, to be honest,” Island said. “This was a big game for us because we weren’t even supposed to lose that game. We had to come together, had a good three, four days of practice and had to lock in for it.”

Reynolds said Saturday against Bloomington will be a good test to see if the Barbs have turned a corner – last week they followed a big conference win on a Friday with a home loss on a Saturday.

“We played really well Friday, and Saturday we were bad,” Reynolds said. “That’s been a common theme, not being engaged defensively in some things. We’ll see tomorrow night if we fixed it.”

The Barbs close out conference play and the regular season Tuesday against Neuqua Valley and can win the DVC outright with a win against the Wildcats, who topped DeKalb in January.

“We got in this league, and no one thought we could compete,” Reynolds said. “I think we’ve done pretty well. Being the little school, we’ve done pretty well, and it’s nice to see. We’d like to finish strong against Neuqua, who beat us last time.”