Newton boys soccer team seeks return trip to state tournament

When Zach Jensen took over the Cardinal boys’ soccer program, he was told by many outsiders that winning at a school like Newton would be impossible.

Jensen, now in his fifth season at the helm, refused to listen to the outside noise. And he guided the Cardinals to the state tournament in 2018.

The 2019 regular season ended with the Cardinals in the state rankings but Newton finished 10-9 as a team. Of course, the 2020 season was wiped out because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Jensen hopes the Cardinals can make a return trip to the Class 2A state tournament this spring and his coaching staff will work with a roster mixed with experience and youth.

“Expectations are always high. We want to constantly do the best we can,” Jensen said. “We want to be a contender in the league and the state. That was my vision coming here. We need to put our expectations as high as we can go. We want to compete for state every year.”

Under Jensen, the Cardinals went 12-7 in 2017 and then finished 14-6 in the state-tournament season that was 2018. The 2019 season started promising but ended with a little better than .500 record.

This season, Jensen and assistant coaches Brett Lundberg and Steve Weeks have a roster that includes eight seniors, seven juniors, six sophomores and 16 freshmen.

Leading the way as key varsity returners are seniors Darara Dawassa, Josh Meyer, Jack Suttek and Derek Lanser and juniors Hunter Kennedy, Derek Beiner, Breyton Schwenker and Caleb Lawson.

“This is probably our most technical team since I have been here,” Jensen said. “We are young, but we have a lot of guys who play club soccer. It’s a high IQ team. We are excited about that. But we are young and have two classes that have yet to play together. The freshmen and sophomores have never played HS soccer. It will be harder to build chemistry.”

The sophomores haven’t played soccer because last year’s season was canceled.

“It’s hard because we have so many interchangeable parts,” Jensen said. “We have several players who play more than one position, which is different from past seasons.”

Kennedy was the second-leading point scorer for Newton in 2019, finishing with 26 points on a team-high 12 goals and two assists in 21 starts.

Dawassa, who earned second team all-conference honors as a sophomore, tallied 23 points on seven goals and a team-best nine assists in 22 starts.

Meyer made 14 starts and scored 10 points, finishing with four goals and two assists. Beiner tallied four points on one goal and two assists.

Lanser made 18 starts and tallied one assist, Schwenker made 10 starts and Suttek started five games and scored one goal.

Senior Jordan Becker made eight starts in 2019 and had two goals and two assists but will miss the entire season with an injury.

Lawson is back after making 20 starts as a freshman, mostly as the team’s goalie. He had one assist that season but made 101 saves and allowed 23 goals in 1,120 minutes.

Lawson’s season was altered because of an injury. Meyer played goalie for 400 minutes in Lawson’s absence, stopping 30 shots and allowing 10 goals.

Jensen said Lawson will likely start this season as the No. 1 goalie but freshmen Hunter Teague also is on the varsity roster and will battle for playing time between the pipes.

Schwenker is the leader of the defense in front of Lawson. Other defenders expected to battle for varsity playing time include senior Trey Hewitt and freshmen Nate Lampe and Cody Klein.

Joining Kennedy, Dawassa and Meyer in the scoring zones are Beiner, Suttek and senior Anthony Bestell.

Beiner and Klein also will compete on the track and field team this spring.

Newton finished fourth in the Little Hawkeye Conference in 2019 but also was one of four teams from the league to be ranked at the end of the season, joining Grinnell, Dallas Center-Grimes and Norwalk. The Cardinals went 4-3 in conference play that season.

“Our league is, for soccer, probably one of the best leagues in the entire state,” Jensen said. “It’s one of the best 2A leagues. Norwalk and Indianola are 3A, too.

“We’ve got two or three teams from our league going to state every year. From top to bottom, it’s a grind every night.”

Newton 2021

Varsity Boys Soccer Schedule

April 1 — Marshalltown, 7 p.m.

April 3 — Home Tournament, 9 a.m.

April 6 — Grinnell, 5:30 p.m.

April 8 — Southeast Polk, 6:15 p.m.

April 13 — Oskaloosa, 7 p.m.

April 16 — Boone, 7 p.m.

April 20 — Pella, 7 p.m.

April 26 — Knoxville, 7 p.m.

April 27 — Norwalk, 7 p.m.

April 30 — Albia, 7 p.m.

May 4 — Pella Christian, 5:30 p.m.

May 8 — Bondurant-Farrar tournament, TBD

May 11 — Indianola, 7 p.m.

May 14 — Nevada, 7 p.m.

May 18 — DCG, 7 p.m.

May 20 — Districts, 6:30 p.m., TBA

Home matches in bold