Strong second half propels Newman past Kewanee

STERLING – When Newman needed a spark out of halftime, it was a trio of juniors who lit the fuse.

Trailing by two at the break, the Comets scored the first 10 points of the second half and never trailed again in a 65-55 victory over visiting Kewanee in a Three Rivers Conference East Division game Friday.

[ Photos from Newman vs. Kewanee boys basketball ]

Point guard Garret Matznick drove to the basket to tie the game 23-23 just eight seconds into the third quarter, then provided assists on three straight baskets – one in the post from George Jungerman and a pair of 3-pointers from Evan Bushman – to turn a 23-21 halftime deficit into a 31-23 lead just 2:12 into the second half.

“I started off really slow, but once I hit one or two in a row, things start cooking, the momentum’s up, everybody’s confidence is up, and we just got rolling. It was nice,” said Bushman, who hit four of his game-high five 3s after halftime.

“We’ve got a lot of weapons on this team, and it really helps to have that in games like this,” said sophomore John Rowzee, who had a double-double with 12 points and a career-high 10 rebounds to go with two steals and a blocked shot. “If we can run the floor and get good ball movement, we can score from anywhere.”

Matznick also had a double-double for the Comets, finishing with 14 points and a career-high 13 assists. Newman assisted on 18 of its 21 baskets in the game. Bushman had 15 points and two assists and matched Matznick and Rowzee with two steals.

George Jungerman led all scorers with 20 points and he also added six rebounds and four steals and Cody McBride grabbed eight rebounds and nabbed two steals to go with four free throws down the stretch to help Newman (10-9, 1-1 TRAC) ice the game. McBride and Matznick combined to shoot 9 for 12 from the foul line over the final 1:57 to seal the win.

After grabbing the lead, the Comets answered every basket for the next nine minutes – literally. For the rest of the third quarter and the first half of the fourth, every time Kewanee hit a shot, Newman matched it on the other end.

When it wasn’t answering 3s with 3s – Bushman did that twice with Kewanee’s Colson Welgat early in the fourth, then later Matznick followed a 3 by Greyden Lewis with a three-point play – the Comets were getting runout layups off both makes and misses by the Boilermakers. Rowzee and Jungerman ran the floor well and found open layups with Matznick’s pinpoint lookahead passes.

“I feel like we really ran the break well,” Rowzee said. “Me running down the floor, we got a few layups, and it got guys open, like George and Evan. They really turned it up.”

Matznick’s ability to handle the ball against Kewanee’s pressure and turn the corner on drives to the basket also helped open things up for Newman’s offense.

“When I’m driving to the hoop, I know I can kick it out to pretty much anyone and they’ll make the shot for us,” Matznick said. “We shot it decent, but we had a couple of turnovers when we shouldn’t have and we missed a couple of layups during the first half. But during the third quarter, we really started shooting it well, and we really got it going at the end.”

While the Comets were hitting shots to turn the tide, they were also turning up their defense. Newman hit its first four shots of the third quarter and forced the Boilermakers into an 0-for-3 start and four turnovers in that span.

A 22-11 scoring edge – as well as forcing eight turnovers while committing none – helped the Comets pull away in the third and build all the cushion they needed.

“We talked about how we needed to just keep hustling, keep rebounding, keep working on defense,” Bushman said about coach Ray Sharp’s halftime speech. “We knew they were getting tired and frustrated, and we just had to keep getting them more tired and frustrated. We trusted our coaching and it worked.”

Welgat led the Boilers with 14 points, four rebounds, three assists and two steals and Lewis added 12 points, four rebounds and a team-high four assists. Catrelle Reed stuffed the stat sheet with 10 points, five rebounds, two assists, two steals and a blocked shot and Brayden Conley finished with nine points, 11 rebounds, two assists and a block. Abram Hicks had five points and seven rebounds and Dontaveon Thomas chipped in nine rebounds as Kewanee outrebounded the Comets 49-36 – including 25-15 on the offensive glass.