Slow start plagues Newton boys in season-ending loss to North Polk

DES MOINES — Sometimes it’s just not your night. That can be the unfortunate side of sports.

For the Newton boys basketball team, that was the case Tuesday during its Class 3A quarterfinal matchup against North Polk.

The No. 6 Cardinals scored just two points in the first quarter and were held to a season-low output for the game during a 49-31 loss to the seventh-ranked Comets at the Iowa High School Boys State Basketball Championships at Wells Fargo Arena.

“It wasn’t necessarily anything they did,” Newton senior Cole Plowman said. “We weren’t moving the ball well together and we turned it over too much. Most of the time we just threw the ball away.”

One of the issues for the Cardinals was turnovers. At one point in the first half, they had more turnovers than points.

They committed nine turnovers in the first two periods and registered 17 for the game. Newton came into the contest averaging around 11 per game.

“We have to do what we do and we had some uncharacteristic turnovers,” Newton head boys basketball coach Jason Carter said. “We knew they were going to apply pressure. We worked on it all week. It just didn’t translate to the game. The officials let them be physical a little bit. We didn’t handle that as well as we should have.”

The Cardinals also were hindered by a tough shooting night and North Polk (20-5) grabbed 10 offensive rebounds in the first half.

Newton shot just 33.3 percent from the floor and was 3-of-16 from 3-point range. North Polk was only 5-of-15 from deep, but the Comets hit some timely treys in the first half to secure a double-digit lead at halftime.

North Polk led 11-2 after one and the only bucket for the Cardinals came on a Tade Vanderlaan runner with 2:39 to play in the period.

The Cardinals (17-7) trailed 4-0 and then North Polk used an 11-0 run to go up 15-2. The Comets outscored Newton 15-10 in the second and Vanderlaan ended the run with a 3.

A Jake Ingle runner and a Drew Thompson triple trimmed the margin to 20-12, but North Polk ended the half with back-to-back 3s to go into the break up 26-12.

“They are really good on defense. They scouted us well,” Newton junior Caleb Mattes said. “They face guarded Brody (Bauer), and I think that threw us off a bit.”

Newton was limited to six points in the third and North Polk extended its lead with an 8-2 run that pushed its margin to 39-18 after three.

The Cardinals outscored the Comets 13-10 in the fourth and Mattes scored nine of his team-high 11 points in the period.

Mattes buried a 3 and then drained a runner on back-to-back possessions and Newton’s 8-1 run ended with a Bauer layup and a Mattes hoop inside the lane.

The Cardinals’ only advantage in the game came in bench points. They outscored the Comets 18-10 with Mattes leading the way with 11 and three rebounds and Vanderlaan put in five points and pulled down two boards.

“I thought Caleb and Tade were both really good,” Carter said. “They both attacked the paint, took care of the ball and were solid on defense. Those two did a really good job giving us energy off the bench. We just didn’t get much else going.”

Most of Mattes’ success again came on drives to the rim.

“It’s mainly just confidence. Once I got that going, it’s hard to stop and it helps the team a lot, too,” Mattes said.

Newton still trailed 42-27 after the run and it never got closer than that after North Polk countered with an 8-0 run of its own.

The 31 points scored were a season-low by 11 points. Newton only scored less than 50 points five times coming into the game.

The Cardinals were out-rebounded 31-25 and delivered only three assists. The Comets had a 26-9 advantage in points off turnovers and did not trail in the game. They led by as many as 23 in the fourth and were in the lead for nearly 30 minutes.

“The one thing I was frustrated with defensively was we let them do the same thing multiple times,” Carter said. “They were driving the ball from the left wing all the way to the right side. And we didn’t adjust very well to it. We had to cut them off, make them spin off it and force them wide and we needed to get to our gaps better. We just didn’t do a good job with that.”

Bauer registered four points, five boards and two assists and Thompson tallied three points and three rebounds.

Plowman grabbed seven boards and blocked three shots, Ingle scored four points and Kacey Sommars pulled down two rebounds off the bench.

Newton’s best two runs of the game were a pair of 5-0 spurts.

“Things didn’t go our way at all. We couldn’t string buckets together,” Carter said. “Our three guys who average double figures combined for 10 so that made things tough.”

Reggie Postel led the Comets with a game-high 21 points and six boards. Postel had 11 of North Polk’s first 18 points and scored seven in the third.

“He made some tough shots. He showed up and made a couple of NBA 3s to start the game,” Carter said. “When you let a kid as good as him get going, he becomes even harder to stop. He was in a rhythm and things went his way.”

North Polk also got 12 points from Jackson Nemmers, nine rebounds from Austin Parkins and seven boards from Kole Krings. The Comets shot 38.8 percent from the floor but turned the ball over just nine times.

The 17 wins for Newton were the most since the 2016-17 squad posted 19 wins in its state-tournament season. The program has won more than 15 games just twice since 2006-07.

“They have to hold their heads up. These guys did something that’s only been accomplished three times since 1964,” Carter said. “It’s only the third team to go to state from Newton in 60 years. That alone is a huge accomplishment.

“They don’t have to be happy with how it ended. It just wasn’t our night. But they should be proud of everything they accomplished because it’s a special thing to make it here.”

Notes: Newton’s crowd again showed out and filled up its entire section on the home side of the arena. “It was awesome playing here. Basically, the whole town of Newton showed up,” Plowman said. “We knew what we could do as a team and getting here was definitely one of our goals.” … The other 3A quarterfinal winners were top-seeded Bondurant-Farrar (81-52 over Algona), second-seeded Cedar Rapids Xavier (49-38 over Des Moines Hoover) and sixth-seeded Sioux City Bishop Heelan (68-59 over Marion). Fifth-seeded North Polk faces Bondurant-Farrar in the state semifinals at 2 p.m. on Thursday.