Cowboys fall to Islanders in Southland semifinals despite Shumate’s record-breaking night

LAKE CHARLES – Christian Shumate became the Southland Conference Tournament’s all-time rebounding champion with his 15 boards in Tuesday night’s semifinal game against No. 1 Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, but the Cowboys, who became the first eighth-seeded team to play in the final four round, ran out of gas and fell to the Islanders 80-63.

Shumate added 30 points to record his sixth-straight double-double and 16th on the season. In three games, the sophomore averaged 26.7 points and 13.7 rebounds. His 41 total rebounds broke a 33-year-old tournament record of 35 rebounds that was set by Ronnie Morgan of North Texas in 1990.

Johnathan Massie added 18 points and six rebounds while Dionjahe Thomas pulled down seven boards.

AMCC (22-10) will now play No. 2 Northwestern State at 4 p.m. in Wednesday’s championship game that will be shown live on ESPN2.

The Islanders had four players score in double-digits, led by De’Lazarus Keys with 18 points and 10 rebounds. Terrion Murdix scored 17, Trevian Tennyson 16 and Jalen Jackson 13.

Corpus held a 36-28 lead at the half and after a Zach Scott 3 closed the gap to 36-31 in the first 21 seconds of the second half, the Islanders scored six straight points to build a 42-31 lead with 17:41 on the clock.

McNeese (11-23) continued to battle back from double-digit deficits and pulled to within 6-9 points over the next seven minutes but the Islanders were able to use a 12-2 run late in the game to extend the lead to 20 then managed to keep the Cowboys from posting any lengthy run.