Newton girls go cold in second half during loss to Indianola

The Newton girls’ basketball team played well as a team and made five 3-pointers in the first half against Indianola on Friday night.

But a change in defense by the Indians altered the Cardinals’ path to victory and a big second half led Indianola to a 66-36 road win during Little Hawkeye Conference play.

“They played zone the entire first half but switched to man in the second,” Newton head girls’ basketball coach Jake Bennett said. “Our motion offense is still kind of new. We’re still trying to figure it out.”

The game was tied at 16-all after one quarter, and Newton only trailed by six at halftime.

However, 10 total points in the final two quarters doomed the home team and the Indians improved to 16-0 against Newton since 2016. The win also completed Indianola’s season sweep.

Alex Garvis, who got hit in the face in the first half and played the entire second half with a black and bruised eye, scored early in the third to close the Indians’ margin to four, but Indianola used a 15-5 third to pull away for good and then outscored the Cardinals 19-5 in the fourth.

Hailey Dickerson scored all three of her points in the third and Alex Riney put in three of the five points in the fourth.

The Cardinals shot 24.5 percent from the floor, made 5-of-25 from 3 and turned the ball over 25 times in the loss. They also were 5-of-12 from the free-throw line.

“The ball was moving a little bit but got stuck at times on the sides,” Bennett said about the motion offense. “We played really well as a team in the first half, but played like we all had to save the world in the second half.

“When we play together, and we proved it in the first half, they showed they can play well.”

Riney matched a career high with 11 points and she added six rebounds and two assists, while Tori White chipped in four points and 11 rebounds.

Payton Carkhuff tallied five points, five boards and two assists, Bella Winther added six points and three rebounds and Main tallied three points, two rebounds and two assists. Garvis grabbed three rebounds and handed out three assists.

All five of Newton’s made 3s came in the first half. The Cardinals executed their 1-2-2 press breaker well to get open shots.

“We have not worked on a 1-2-2 press. We drew it up literally just before the game and were able to go out and execute it and get some good looks from outside,” Bennett said. “It was good to see our girls making 3s. They’ve worked super hard at it.”

Notes: The black eye did not prevent Garvis from playing the next night against Des Moines Hoover. But Riley Plowman (knee) and Brooke Garvis (broken hand) have been ruled out for the rest of the season due to injury, according to Bennett. … The theme of the season after the winter break has been postponements and cancellations due to weather. It’s also prevented teams from having normal practice time. “We’ve had a full practice just twice in the last two weeks,” Bennett said. “It’s definitely been tough. We have to be able to control things we can control and that’s something we have no control over. We worked super hard over the winter break so it does stink to have basically two more weeks off. I have never seen anything like that.”