Boys basketball: West Carroll can't recover from quick Newman start

OREGON – Besides having the game’s only legitimate big man in 6-foot-7 Devon House, Newman had another advantage in its 61-39 win over West Carroll at the Oregon Thanksgiving Tournament.

“We already had our first game in and they hadn’t,” Newman coach Ray Sharp said. “We got our jitters out and they even had it tougher with a new coach.”

West Carroll fell behind 20-4 after one quarter of play, and that was the game. The Thunder did keep the final score respectable in the final 24 minutes, though.

“We were tentative early,” West Carroll coach Tevan Hartman said. “In the second, third and fourth quarters, we started playing defense.”

Newman rotated nine players the entire game, with House and freshman Marcus Williams splitting time in the post.

House was unstoppable, scoring 14 points in part-time action. Williams added 16 in a variety of different moves under the basket.

“That’s tough with Devon, Drew [Ackman] and Marcus inside,” Sharp said.

Newman was also hard to defend from the outside. Jake Terveer hit a pair of 3-pointers to spark the Comets to a 10-0 lead.

Ryan Gengenbach, who led his team with 16 points, finally scored 4 minutes into the game to give West Carroll its first points.

“Ryan’s our main returner,” Hartman said. “Him and Alec [Tipton] are driving the bus for us,”

One thing that impressed Sharp was his team’s willingness to share the ball.

“The biggest thing I saw tonight was how unselfish with the ball we were,” he said.

Two of the prettiest assists came towards the end of the first quarter, with Jake Ackman feeding House. On the very next possession, it was House to Williams. Andrew Velasquez added to the assist highlight reel with a no-look pass to Williams for Newman’s final two points of the first half and a 33-15 lead.

Josh Payan paced the Comets in the third quarter with two 3-pointers to go with his game-high five baskets beyond the arc. Michael Popkin helped the Thunder keep pace with five points in the third, but they struggled to keep up with Newman.

“It was about learning something new,” Hartman said. “Last year, they ran man-to-man on defense and motion cutting on offense. This year, it’s clearly zone and variations of a swing offense.”

With wins over North Boone and West Carroll, Newman won its pool and advances to Saturday’s semifinal against Rockford Christian at 2 p.m.

“They have a good young point guard and a couple good wings,” Sharp said of Rockford Christian.