Newton non-dramatically cruises past Knoxville
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| Newton senior Brian Rose drives on two Knoxville defenders in the third quarter of the Cardinals’ 57-31 victory in Knoxville Friday night. Rose and fellow senior Shamus Baltisberger led all scorers with 13 points each. (Shane Lucas/Daily News) |
KNOXVILLE — In its first meeting with Knoxville this season, the Newton boys basketball team needed a buzzer-beating shot in the fourth quarter to down the Panthers. The second time around, things were a tad bit more relaxing.
The Cardinals (8-7, 4-7 Little Hawkeye Conference) held the Panthers to single-digits in all four quarters and had three players score in double figures during their relieving 57-31 victory Friday night that was an extension of their recent elevated play.
“I think it’s just a bunch of things coming together,” Newton coach Nick Wilkins said. “I watched the Pella Christian game film and what I thought was what I thought before I watched it — we played really well. The kids are playing really well and enjoying themselves, and that’s really all you can ask for.”
Newton held a 1-0 lead before a second ticked off the clock thanks to a pregame technical foul on the Panthers, and they didn’t look back from there. Six players got into the scoring fray for Newton, which led 18-9 after a 9-0 run closed out the first quarter.
“We were just more aggressive with the ball, took it to the hoop and finished our shots for the most part,” said Newton senior Shamus Baltisberger, who finished with 13 points. “We just played a lot better game than the first time we played.”
The Cards kept their foot on the gas in the second with an effective full-court press that forced numerous turnovers and led to points on the other side of the court. Transition points kept the scoring distribution even as Baltisberger had nine points going into halftime while fellow senior Brian Rose and junior Collin Reynolds each had seven and Newton lead comfortably at 31-16.
“It’s something we’ve been toying with and we definitely wanted to speed up the game tonight. We didn’t want another 33-32 game,” Wilkins said of the press. “We were so lethargic in that first game, so we tried the press to speed things up, and it’s something we’ll definitely use for the rest of the season.”
After a 4-0 Newton run started the second half, Knoxville made its only major threat in the game with an 8-0 run of its own that forced a Cardinal timeout. The timeout served its purpose to calm the team down, as Newton cruised through the rest of the quarter on a 7-0 to reclaim a 19-point lead heading into the fourth.
“Once they got that run in the third, coach called a timeout and basically told us to calm down,” Baltisberger said. “He told us to get back to doing what we were doing the whole game, and that’s what we did.”
“I think where we’ve grown from the beginning of the year is when teams would go on a run at the beginning of the year, we’d shut down a little bit,” Wilkins added. “Now we can get that back and play some lockdown defense from there. It’s great to see all the kids doing that.”
Newton’s starters remained in the the game for the first few minutes of the fourth and managed a 9-3 run. It was another complete scoring effort as senior Scott Nilles and junior Jesse Bates got points down low, Rose hit a 3-pointer and junior Andrew Clements converted a Rose steal into a layup on the other end. Because of that, Newton’s bench players got some quality minutes at the end of the game and went on a 4-0 run, much to Wilkins’ pleasure.
“Those kids work their butts off in practice every day and the crowds obviously aren’t as big for the JV games, so it’s nice to get them some varsity minutes,” Wilkins said. “They’re going to be varsity players sooner rather than later, so it was good to see them playing hard.”
The win came at a good time for the Cards, who are entering their home stretch of the season. Besides Friday’s doubleheader against Grinnell, Newton’s four remaining games are all non-conference and at home, starting with Chariton tonight. If they can carry Friday’s effort into these final games, the Cards could have some major momentum going into the postseason.
“Everyone was doing what they’re supposed to do,” Baltisberger said. “Brian’s supposed to shoot the ball and Andrew’s supposed to create shots for others, and we did that well I think.”
Newton 57, Knoxville 31
Score by quarter
N — 18 13 11 15 — 57
K — 9 6 8 8 — 31
Individual scorers
N — Baltisberger 13, Rose 13, Reynolds 10, Nilles 9, Clements 4, Bates 2, Sturtz 2, Thompson 2, Wood 2
K — Davis 7, McWilliams 7, Ryan 6, Brady 4, Higgenbotham 4, Winters 3
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