Cards crush Knoxville in season opener

KNOXVILLE — There would be no Ken Locke Stadium letdown this time around for Newton’s football team.

The Cardinals got off to a fast start, controlled the line of scrimmage and dominated Knoxville on Friday night during a 41-0 non-district road win.

It’s the first win for the Cardinals since defeating South Tama County 56-21 on Sept. 27, 2019. The losing streak had reached 12 games, eight of which came under head coach Andy Swedenhjelm in 2020.

“It feels great. It feels awesome,” said Swedenhjelm about getting his first win as Newton’s head coach. “We talk about it with our kids — we have to win all three phases. We were able to do that tonight. The defense set the tone early, scoring on a big play. The defense has been really good in fall camp and they showed that tonight.”

Reese Hammons cracked the scoreboard less than 2 minutes into the game when he scooped up a fumble and returned it about 30 yards for a touchdown.

Newton (1-0) simply dominated in the ground game the rest of the night, running for 286 yards and averaging 10.6 yards per carry.

“Our line played pretty well tonight. We really emphasized this offseason that we want to be a big, physical team and we want to set the tone up front,” Swedenhjelm said. “We have the expectation that we want to run the ball. Our guys were excited about that.”

Hammons missed last week’s scrimmage because of an injury. He admitted to tweaking the injury on the first play of the game, but he didn’t feel much pain at all on the defensive touchdown.

Hammons, Braydon Chance, Adam Mattes and Wyatt Weter all had three tackles to lead the defense. Hammons, Weter and Eli Stewart all recovered fumbles.

“This feels amazing. We have been working all winter and all summer to get better,” Hammons said. “We finally put it all together tonight and it shows on the scoreboard that we did it right.”

The Hammons TD gave Newton a 7-0 lead and Caleb Mattes’ 4-yard touchdown run made it 14-0 after one quarter. Newton scored 21 points in the second to go up 35-0 at halftime. There was a continuous clock for the entire second half.

In the second, Zay Arguello had touchdown runs of 69 and 27 yards and Keith Moko capped the half with a 53-yard TD with 5:01 left in the period.

Stewart finished off the scoring with a 17-yard touchdown run in the third.

There were changes made to the starting lineup. Mattes was given the nod at quarterback and he finished 1-for-3 through the air for 11 yards. His one completion went to Turner Williams.

Mattes gained 27 yards on five carries. Arguello ran for 94 yards and two scores on three carries, Moko’s lone run went for 53 and Cody Klein gained 44 yards on his six carries.

Stewart carried it eight times for 36 yards, Jakez Siddell went 19 yards on his two carries and Clayton Wickliffe ran 13 yards on two carries.

Neither starting offense or defense played much in the second half. Eight players tallied either two or three tackles on the night. Brendon West, Blake Schilling, Evan Grimm and Cole Conner all had two tackles.

Newton’s defense held Knoxville (0-1) to 142 total yards. The Cardinals limited the Panthers’ passing game to 19 yards.

“We get a lot of reps for everybody and make sure to keep a high intensity every day in practice,” Hammons said. “We hope to stop the offense no matter who is out there.”

Swedenhjelm was proud of all of his guys for being ready to play when their number was called.

“They always have to be ready. We are lucky. We have some fantastic kids and they were ready to rock and roll,” Swedenhjelm said. “We have expectations for our whole team and when the backups get in the expectations don’t change. They are representing our team and school. They did a great job and they had good energy.”

The only negative on the night was a few bad snaps when the quarterback was in shotgun. Swedenhjelm also doesn’t want his team to be satisfied about one win.

The Cardinals face PCM (1-0) in a Jasper County showdown at 7:30 p.m. on Friday at H.A. Lynn Stadium.

“We can’t be satisfied. Be happy we won. But we have to flush it and get ready for a really good PCM team coming to town next week,” Swedenhjelm said. “We have to be ready for a tough, hard-nosed battle.”