Fast start keys Newton football’s win over Carlisle

Newton junior center Koltt Ahn had a lot of fun playing football on Friday night. He also joked about wishing the Cardinals’ offense could run a few more plays.

“We worked hard all week and our scout defense gives us a good look and we were able to execute. We put in some new stuff this week and got it done,” Ahn said. “It was fun, but I do wish we could get more plays on offense sometimes.”

The Newton football team rushed for a season-high 337 yards, posted a season-best 555 total yards and cruised past Carlisle, 45-11, on Friday night.

The Cardinals only had the ball for 16 minutes of game time during the Class 4A District 4 contest, but Newton registered its fifth win of the season at H.A. Lynn Stadium.

“We’re pretty lucky when it comes to having a lot of dudes who can do damage with the ball in their hands,” Newton head football coach Andy Swedenhjelm said. “We’re able to get the ball to a variety of guys.”

Newton defeated Carlisle for the second straight season. The Cardinals have outscored the Wildcats 89-17 in those two games and are now 3-2 against them since 2010.

Caden Klein rushed for a career-high 246 yards and four touchdowns and threw for 218 yards and two scores in the victory.

Klein completed passes to four different players, including Nick Thomason, who hauled in a 70-yard touchdown late in the fourth to cap the scoring. It was Thomason’s first career touchdown.

It also was one of four touchdowns that went for at least 52 yards. Klein opened the scoring with a 57-yard TD run with 1 second to go in the first quarter and then sprinted 80 yards for another TD midway through the second.

The junior quarterback added touchdown runs of 18 and 52 yards and threw a 16-yard TD pass to Reilly Trease to finalize a 21-point second frame that put the Cardinals in front 28-11 at halftime.

“The explosive plays are never planned, but we have a lot of fast guys,” Klein said. “It just takes one broken tackle and our guys are gone. Even our linemen are fast. A lot of us have those huge plays. We want to play a physical brand of football, too, so if that’s driving down the field or making big plays, we just want to be the more physical team.”

Carlisle also wants to be physical at the point of attack and had a solid first half.

The Wildcats rushed for 234 yards on 52 carries in the game, but the Cardinal defense pitched a shutout in the second half after making a few adjustments at halftime.

Dylan Egan kicked a 48-yard field goal with just less than 7 minutes to go in the half and then Caleb Nordhagen scored on a 1-yard TD run with 1:33 left in the second.

“We knew they were a run-heavy offense and they got quite a bit of yards on us, but I thought we responded well in the second half,” said Newton sophomore linebacker Nick Milburn, who finished with 14 tackles. “We made some adjustments. We also had a different look this week. We moved our safety down into the box. It was more like a 3-5 look. It was new to us so it was just a little slow start.”

The Cardinals (5-2, 2-1 in the district) scored late in the half after Trey Davidson snagged his first career interception on a deep pass down the field.

Newton needed just two plays to reach paydirt. Klein hit Qhjuan Coley for 25 yards and then found a wide open Trease in the back of the end zone for the 16-yard touchdown.

Carlisle picked up four first downs on its opening drive of the second half and drove into the red zone. The visitors stayed off the scoreboard though after a missed field goal from 27 yards out.

Newton’s ensuing drive covered 80 yards in six plays. Coley ran for eight yards on third and two and then caught a 12-yard pass from Klein, who capped the possession with a 52-yard TD run.

“We all knew after last week we’d have to win out to get into the playoffs and our goal is to win by 17 each week so we can possibly win the district if Pella gets beat,” Klein said. “I thought we came out ready to play.”

The postseason tiebreaker changed this fall. The Iowa High School Athletic Association brought back the 17-point margin of victory to settle three-way ties.

Winning by a comfortable margin is the goal from here on out for the Cardinals.

“We understand what the tiebreakers are, and I think our district is really tough,” Swedenhjelm said. “We think we still have a shot to win the thing, but we have to take care of what we can take care of, and part of that is the 17-point thing.

“I also want us to establish the mentality that we aren’t going to let our foot off the gas. When kids relax, things can get funky real quick so we want to make sure we have that attitude established.”

Klein’s fourth rushing touchdown of the game made it 35-11 with 4:39 to play in the third.

Jackson Price booted a 36-yard field goal early in the fourth to extend the margin to 38-11.

Thomason’s TD catch from Klein came with 9:00 to go. It was not designed to be a deep pass, but Thomason got open down field and Klein hit him in stride.

“Teams will try to take away Caden’s running and they’ll try to take away Finn, but the more guys who step up and become threats, the less teams can do that kind of stuff,” Swedenhjelm said.

Both teams picked up 18 first downs. Carlisle (0-7, 0-3) was 6-of-15 on third down and had the ball for 32 minutes of game time.

But Newton’s big lead got the Wildcats in passing situations. That was advantageous for the Cardinals.

“I’d say that was huge. They don’t like to throw the ball, so getting that lead early got them out of their comfort zone,” Milburn said. “Once we started doing that, they couldn’t stick with us. Our defensive backs played well back there, too.”

Peyton Rozendaal snagged his team-best third pick of the season in the second half and finished with 8.5 tackles. Klein totaled eight tackles, Colton Northcutt chipped in five tackles and Derek Wermager registered 4.5 tackles.

Davidson, Kaiden Rogers and Lincoln Peterson all posted four tackles and Damien Smith and Henry Allen each finished with three tackles.

Trease ran for 47 yards on four carries, caught the 16-yard TD and gained 38 yards on his only kickoff return.

Thomason gained 22 yards on two carries, Finn Martin hauled in two passes for 42 yards and Coley gained a career-best 90 yards on his four catches and ran for 13 yards on four carries.

Nordhagen led Carlisle with 121 yards and one TD on 25 carries and Calvin Frey gained 57 yards on three catches.

CJ Haug threw for 117 yards and one interception and rushed for 37 yards on eight carries and Noah Noland led the Wildcats with 10 tackles.

“They want to control the ball and be physical,” Swedenhjelm said. “That’s their identity so it was huge for us to get that early lead to force them to throw it more. That’s why we took the ball first.

“We just got back to basics. We came back to reading our keys and played gap sound football.”

Notes: Newton averaged 13 yards per carry and was put into a third-down situation only seven times. “We wanted it too much and played tight last week,” Ahn said. “We just needed to relax and play our style of football.” … Klein’s 983 rushing yards rank third in 4A. His 11 rushing TDs are tied for fifth and his 1,093 passing yards are 10th. … Rozendaal’s three picks are tied for fifth in 4A and Milburn’s 67 tackles rank fourth. … Newton has rushed for 1,703 yards, which ranks third in the class. The Cardinals rank second in 4A with a 7.1 yards per carry average and their 22 rushing touchdowns rank third. … The Wildcats are 0-7 but every loss came against a team with an above .500 record. Their seven opponents are currently 37-12 this fall.