Newton girls down Perry, Lincoln at home tournament

The Newton girls soccer team started the season with an experienced defense. And that defense has shown up so far this spring.

The Cardinals posted their fifth shutout on Saturday during the team’s home tournament. And the defense has allowed a younger offensive unit to figure things out on the other side of the field.

Alex Garvis likes the way the defense is playing and feels like the Cardinals are close at the offensive end of the pitch, too.

“The defense is starting to work well as a unit. We had really good communcation today, too,” Garvis said. “We’re getting a lot of good looks on offense. We just have to put more of our attempts in the back of the net. But I think we are getting enough opportunities to be successful.”

The Cardinals improved to 6-2 on Saturday following a 3-1 win over Perry and a 2-0 victory against Des Moines Lincoln at H.A. Lynn Stadium.

Newton chose to play back-to-back matches due to having prom later in the evening. That didn’t seem to bother the Cardinals, who won their fourth straight contest.

“The girls made the choice to play back-to-back games so they didn’t have to miss out on their appointments,” Newton head girls soccer coach Susan Altemeier said. “I wouldn’t have preferred to do it that way, but I left it up to them. They also knew the expectations were going to be the same.”

Aliviah Ross had quite the day for Newton. The Cardinals scored five goals in the two wins and Ross accounted for four of them. She now has a career-best and team-high seven goals for the season.

She scored her first two goals of the day in the first half against Perry. The Cardinals went up 1-0 in the 14th minute as Ross scored on a through ball assist by Estella Allen.

The Cardinals made it 2-0 when Ross booted the ball past the Jayettes keeper from about 25 yards out in the 26th minute.

“I think we are improving. We had some good passes today and scored enough goals to win,” Ross said. “I think we’re getting used to our new formation and trying to get our crosses to the inside so we can score more goals. We still need work on some things though.”

The Cardinals (6-2) changed their formation a bit recently to apply more pressure offensively.

Altemeier said things are moving in the right direction and the players are making the right decisions. The next step is being quicker with those decisions.

“We still have four in the back, but we’re a triangle in the middle now,” Altemeier said. “We’re trying to attack more. Taytem (Seitz) and Merissa (Schiebel) were playing back as holding midfielders but now they are attacking midfielders. They are now participating with the front line so now we are working on being more successful with that adjustment.”

Perry’s Cate Erickson cut Newton’s lead to 2-1 in the 50th minute, but Payton Carkhuff pushed the margin back to two goals when she booted a corner kick two minutes later that got misplayed by the Jayette keeper.

Newton held a 20-5 advantage in shots and had an 11-2 surplus in shots on goal. The Cardinals also had a 4-1 advantage in corner kicks.

Perry (1-6) entered the tournament with no goals in its first five losses.

The Cardinals won another 2-0 match against Lincoln in their second match of the day. They are averaging two goals per game in their six wins but scoring goals at a lesser rate overall this spring.

Ross scored both goals against the Railsplitters. Her first goal came in the 16th minute. Cailyn Doland got free in the middle of the field and eventually set up Ross for the goal from 15 yards out.

Her second goal of the match came in the 45th minute off an assist from Taytem Seitz.

“We are staying in our formations better, but we still need to work on passing,” Altemeier said. “Unfortunately, a lot of calls didn’t go our way today and that hindered us. We’ll work on being better with that stuff.”

Newton held an 18-5 advantage in shots and had a 10-3 surplus in shots on goal. Natalee Freese posted another shutout and had four saves on the day.

Des Moines Lincoln dropped to 3-4 on the season. The Railsplitters have been outscored 32-0 in their losses.

Altemeier would like to score more goals overall. Newton was hindered by several offsides calls in the win against Perry. That number decreased significantly in the win over Lincoln.

“We played well today,” Altemeier said. “Do I think we could have scored more goals? Yes. But the calls against us hurt us.”

Notes: Garvis thought the team was focused through the morning despite having prom later in the day. “Playing back to back helped us stay in rhythm,” Garvis said. “I would rather do that than sit out a game. I think we were focused enough today to win a few games, but it’s hard not to think about prom and all that stuff some.” ... The tournament featured four 60-minute matches. The two teams played 30-minute halves. ... Things got physical and a bit out of hand late in the match against Lincoln as both teams committed a few too many fouls. Newton’s Haylie Milheiser and Lincoln’s Yaretzi Alvarez both were given yellow cards in the final 20 minutes.

Newton 1, Albia 0

ALBIA — Carkhuff’s penalty kick goal in the second half of a non-conference match against Albia was all Newton needed to dispatch the Lady Demons on Thursday.

The Cardinals posted their fourth shutout of the season during a 1-0 road victory.

Newton took 13 shots and six of them were on goal. Freese made one save in her 80 minutes in goal.

Six of Newton’s eight matches this season have ended in a shutout. All three Albia (2-3) losses were by shutout. The Lady Demons were outscored 4-0 in those matches.