No. 6 Cardinals open state tournament against No. 7 North Polk

When Newton senior Brody Bauer emerged from the pile of his teammates celebrating a substate championship game win over Solon on Tuesday, he had a hard time holding back tears.

He was so happy to be able to keep playing basketball with his teammates.

“That’s why I get emotional. I just love playing with this group of guys and winning this game means I get to keep playing with them,” Bauer said after scoring 20 points in the state-tournament clinching win over the Spartans. “I’m not ready for that to be done.”

The 60-46 win over Solon allows Bauer and his teammates to play at least one more game together.

That game will be against seventh-ranked North Polk at the Iowa High School Boys State Basketball Championships inside Wells Fargo Arena in Des Moines.

Tip-off for that game is scheduled for 3:45 p.m. on Tuesday. It will be the 4-5 matchup in the eight-team Class 3A bracket.

“Oh my goodness, we’ve been working on this since YMCA ball. For this very moment,” senior Jake Ingle said. “We did it. It’s a dream come true.”

Newton enters the state tournament on a three-game win streak and the Cardinals are 11-1 against 3A competition this season.

North Polk (19-5) has won five in a row and its postseason wins came against Saydel (74-33), Boone (54-26) and second-ranked Clear Lake (52-43).

The Comets also have wins over Pella (57-49), Dallas Center-Grimes (51-49) and Solon (66-49) this season. They lost twice to undefeated and top-ranked Bondurant-Farrar.

“A lot of our spreads have been similar based on the common opponents,” Newton head boys basketball coach Jason Carter said. “They play really hard. They’re athletic and physical and they try to bother you defensively. They will get in our faces and they win a lot of loose balls.

“But I feel like we are that kind of team, too. There are a lot of similarities between our teams. They are fairly balanced on offense, too.”

The similarities go beyond personnel and common opponents.

Newton (17-6) averages 59.7 points per game and allows 49.6. North Polk counters with a 57 points per-game average and the Comets allow 48.3 points per game.

The Cardinals are slightly better in shooting percentages. They come into the game shooting 44 percent from the floor, 34 percent from 3-point range and 72 percent from the free-throw line.

North Polk connects on 43 percent from the floor, 30.8 percent from 3 and 65.8 percent from the foul line.

The turnovers committed per game also are similar with Newton having a slight edge 11.3 to 12.5.

“They are good enough to make the state tournament so you obviously can’t overlook anyone. I think we match up well with them,” senior Carson Satterfield said. “If you look at the stats, we are pretty evenly matched. This is what you should expect from a 4-5 matchup. This game is supposed to be close. But our tight-knit group might give us an advantage over them.”

The Comets are led by junior Reggie Postel. He averages 12.4 points, 2.6 rebounds, 1.7 assists and 1.7 steals per game and has buried 45 3-pointers.

Senior Jackson Nemmers averages 11.2 points, 4.7 boards and 2.3 assists per game and he’s connected on 22 treys.

No other North Polk player averages in double figures but senior Austin Parkins (8.1 points, 4.4 rebounds per game), senior Jaxon Rutledge (7.0 points, 4.1 assists per game), senior Kole Krings (5.9 points, 5.9 rebounds per game) and junior Graedan Sullivan (4.9 points, 4.1 rebounds per game) also are productive.

“If we play our type of basketball like we have all year, and go in confident, I think we’ll be fine,” senior Drew Thompson said. “We match up pretty evenly. They have their guys and we have our guys. Our conference prepares us so much for this moment though.”

Senior Tade Vanderlaan feels like the key is going to be at the defensive end of the floor.

“They’re a solid team. I think we need to step up our defense,” Vanderlaan said. “We have to lock down on their guards. They’re a good shooting team and they’re quick so we just have to play really good defense.”

The last time Newton and North Polk faced each other was during a fall league right after football ended. Senior Jake Ingle said he had barely picked up a basketball since the summer at that point.

“They’re a good team. We’ve seen them in summer ball,” Ingle said. “If we play how we can play, we’ll get the job done.”

The 3A tournament begins with top-ranked and top-seeded Bondurant-Farrar (23-0) facing off against eighth-seeded Algona (17-7) at 2 p.m. on Tuesday.

The other two quarterfinal matchups on Tuesday feature third-seeded and fifth-ranked Marion (19-5) and sixth-seeded and 10th-ranked Sioux City Bishop Heelan (18-6) playing at 5:30 p.m. and second-seeded and fourth-ranked Cedar Rapids Xavier (18-6) and seventh-seeded Des Moines Hoover (15-9) tipping off at 7:15 p.m.

The Cardinals’ lone loss in 3A was a 60-50 setback against Bondurant-Farrar, but Newton was without Vanderlaan. The Bluejays outscored host Newton 21-5 in the third.

“That’s a challenge we would love to have at full strength,” Carter said. “We felt like it was one we let get away from us. They took it to us for a stretch. We would love the opportunity to play them again, but we have to take care of North Polk first. We know they are a tough opponent, too. We will have to claw and scratch our way to a win in the first round.”

Notes: Newton will have a shootaround at the Knapp Center on the day of the quarterfinal game. That’s the home of the Drake Bulldogs and former Newton Cardinal Garrett Sturtz. Sturtz was on the Cardinals’ most recent state tournament team in 2017.