Slaughter’s career night powers Newton boys to win over Grinnell in season opener

Newton sophomore Isaiah Slaughter knew he was in for a big night after draining his second 3-pointer in the first quarter of the Cardinals’ season-opening game against Grinnell on Tuesday.

Slaughter added one more trey in the period, sunk six in the game and his career-high 25 points lifted the Newton boys basketball team to a 66-59 non-conference home win.

“After that second shot I was feeling it,” Slaughter said. “I didn’t think anyone could stop me, and nobody really did. I was hot for sure.”

Newton led by three after one quarter, pushed the margin to six at halftime and outscored the Tigers 35-34 in the second half.

It was the Cardinals’ second straight win over Grinnell. Newton is 20-15 in the series since 2006 and has won nine of the past 10 meetings.

“It was a good test for the guys, and they started to do a better job of moving without the ball,” Newton head boys basketball coach Jason Carter said. “We played a lot of iso ball (in the scrimmage) against Carlisle but really stayed away from that tonight. We were passers first, got our teammates involved and that spread the floor and helped everyone.”

Slaughter was easily the top scorer in the team’s season opener, but five other players scored between five and nine points.

Slaughter opened the game with a 3, put Newton back in front 8-7 with another trey and then pushed the Cardinals to a 12-9 advantage with a third triple late in the first.

Karter Holmes ended the first and second quarters with 3s, but Slaughter had 17 of the team’s 31 first-half points.

He extended the lead to 18-12 and 23-14 with his fourth and fifth treys, but Grinnell rallied to tie the score with nine straight.

The Cardinals (1-0) led 31-25 at the break after scoring eight of the final 10 points of the half. That run included 3s by Micah Mattes and Holmes and a fadeaway jumper by Slaughter.

“Bubba (Slaughter) is going to get a bunch of attention from other teams as the season goes on,” Carter said. “When guys are playing that well, it’s going to stretch the floor. The new guys will continue to get used to the pace of the game. And learn what an open shot looks and feels like. I think we passed up a lot of open shots because we weren’t sure they were open.”

Slaughter impacted Newton’s season after the holiday break last winter. He played in 17 games as a freshman and that experience helped him hit the ground running this season.

Slaughter was fouled attempting a 3 early in the third and made his final trey late in the period.

In between that was a lot of penetration to the hoop from Dawson Maki, who finished with seven assists in the win.

“It definitely helped a lot,” Slaughter said about playing last year as a freshman. “I had a lot of fear last year at first, but I got the confidence and that helped me going into this year knowing what my role was going to be and knowing how to handle it.”

Maki set up both Grant Osby and Tyler Thompson with looks inside the lane, and they took advantage with a combined 15 points.

An Osby layup gave Newton a 38-29 lead and then Thompson’s bucket inside pushed the margin to 46-35 later in the quarter.

Slaughter’s final 3 and a layup by Maki sent the Cardinals into the fourth with a 51-38 advantage.

“I thought Dawson’s drives in the second half were big,” Carter said. “That’s what it’s going to take. We have to get everyone involved. We have capable scorers, but we need to finish a high percentage of our bunnies around the bucket. I think we left 10 or 12 points off the board because we missed shots we should make.

“If we’re playing team basketball and assisting the ball, we’ll be a lot better for it.”

The fourth quarter belonged to Grinnell’s Kegan Hobbs, but it wasn’t enough to rally the Tigers all the way back.

Hobbs finished with a game-high and a career-high 27 points in the loss. He scored 21 in the second half and 16 came in the fourth.

Hobbs opened the final frame with six of the first eight points and his bucket later closed the margin to 54-49.

But Maki scored consecutive buckets inside the lane and then Osby and Slaughter each scored inside to swell the advantage back to double digits.

Back-to-back treys by Hobbs melted the margin to 62-55 and another bucket by Hobbs got the Tigers within six.

That was as close as it got though as Holmes and Maki hit free throws and Thompson scored inside in the final minute to close out the victory.

“The first half was kind of shaky, but we locked in for the second half and showed what we are capable of,” Slaughter said. “We have a lot of guys injured right now, too, so it can only help us later in the year when we get everyone back.”

Caden Klein is the biggest piece currently unable to play due to an injury he suffered during football season.

Carter said Klein is day-to-day right now, but they won’t bring back the team’s only returning full-time starter until he’s 100 percent healthy.

“Every game doesn’t matter as much as football,” Carter said. “If we go from a fourth seed to a sixth seed because we don’t have (Klein) before the break, that’s fine. I’m not afraid of any 3 seeds really.”

Slaughter finished 6-of-8 from 3 and added three rebounds and two blocks. Maki scored seven of his nine points in the fourth and added five rebounds and two steals to his career-high seven assists.

Osby totaled eight points, seven rebounds and three blocks, Holmes tallied seven points, two rebounds and two assists in his first career start and Thompson chipped in seven points and three boards off the bench.

Brody Wobschall scored all five of his points in the third and grabbed two rebounds in his first career start and Mattes finished with three points, five rebounds and three assists off the bench.

Drew Bauer made a pair of free throws in the second quarter for his first career varsity points, too.

Newton shot 43 percent from the floor, made 10-of-18 from 3 and connected on 12-of-22 from the free-throw line. The Cardinals turned the ball over only seven times and blocked six shots.

Grinnell (0-1) got 27 points from Hobbs and Aden Wolfe scored 10 of his 17 points in the first half.

“I thought those two did a really good job. They made some tough shots, too,” Carter said about Wolfe and Hobbs. “They made three or four 3s at the end of the shot clock. Props to those two. We gave (Hobbs) a couple of easy ones and (Wolfe’s) first couple of 3s were too easy, but we made them make tough shots and guarded everyone else really well. That allowed us to get quite a few stops we needed to get, and we rebounded the ball better in the second half. We gave up too many second-chance points in the first half.”