Newton girls drop game to Falcons

The Newton High School girls’ basketball team got off to too slow a start in the first and third quarters against the Riley County Falcons, falling 50-29 Saturday in the consolation finals of the Hays City Shootout.

The Railers were competitive in the second and third quarters but held to three points in the fourth quarter.

Newton falls to 1-2. Riley County, the defending Class 2A champs, finish the tournament 2-1. It was Newton’s second loss in three days to a state final four team from last season.

“We have to learn to execute,” Newton coach Randy Jordan said. “Right now, we’re not really playing together. At times, we showed signs of it. Against a team like Riley County, you have to do that all the time. At the half, we turned it up. Offensively, we went dead. We were in the one-and-one, but we kept dribbling it sideways instead. We needed to go inside and draw some hand check fouls. They zoned us a lot. I don’t blame them. Last night, we got zoned, but we lit them up.”

Newton lost starting guard Chelsea Gronau to illness. Gronau was named to the tournament’s all-academic team. Arin McMullen took second in the hot-shot contest in Gronau’s place.

“She’s OK right now,” Jordan said. “We really missed her.”

Lainey Uphoff led Riley County with 19 points, followed by Kiley Rothlisberger with 11.

Katelyn Alexander led Newton with seven points.

Riley County jumped out 10-0 in the first 3:45 of play, getting a three-point play 16 seconds into play and a 3-point shot to end the run. After a Newton time out, Riley County added another jumper, but the Railers ended the quarter on a 6-0 run.

The Falcons opened the second quarter with a trey, but the Railers replied with a 7-0 run to pull within two. Riley County ended the half with a 9-2 run capped by a Kelly Thomas layup at the buzzer.

Newton opened the third quarter with two free throws each from Kate Lehman and Katelyn Alexander. A pair of Avery Vogts free throws and one of two by Lehman got the Railers within four.

Newton missed several chances to cut the lead to two. Upoff hit one of two free throws with 18.1 seconds left in the period to put the Falcons up by six, 32-26.

Riley County put the game away with a 7-0 run to start the fourth quarter.

“We can build on a lot of good things here,” Jordan said. “I think we learned a lot in terms of how hard we have to play. I think everybody showed signs of good things. We need to work on our perimeter game.”

Newton plays at 6 p.m. Friday at Dodge City.

“They were a 6A state tournament team last year,” Jordan said. “They lost a lot of players from last year, but they still have a lot of good players coming back. They play a lot of 3-2 zone, the Dodge City Zone. We’ll have to be ready for that.”

Friday, Gronau hit four 3-point shots en route to 17 points in a 55-43 win over DeSoto in the consolation semifinals.

Newton trailed 14-11 after the first quarter and 25-24 at the half, but put the game away with a 21-10 third quarter.

Newton was outscored 42-40 from the field, 21-12 from beyond the arc, but outscored DeSoto 15-30 from the free throw line. Two DeSoto players fouled out.

Vogts added 10 points for Newton.

Shelby Petty led DeSoto with 15 points, hitting four 3-pointers. Tami Crow added 13 points.

Consolation finals

RILEY COUNTY (2-1) — Rothlisberger 3 (1) 2-3 1, 11; Thomas 1 2-2 3, 4; Underwood 0 0-0 0, 0; Uphoff 3 (1) 10-13 2, 19; Marcotte 0 0-2 0, 0; Starnes 0 (1) 0-2 0, 3; Husted 3 2-2 2, 8; Tittel 1 2-4 2, 4; Sullivan 0 0-0 1, 0; Buss 0 0-0 0, 0; Jones 0 0-0 1, 0; Phebus 0 1-3 0, 1; Rheaume 0 0-0 1, 0; TOTALS 11 (3) 19-28 13, 50.

NEWTON (1-2) — Scott 0 0-2 0, 0l; Grosch 0 0-0 2, 0; McCartney 0 0-0 3, 0; Minkevitch 3 0-0 4, 6; McMullen 0 0-0 1, 0; Yoder 0 (1) 0-0 4, 3; Vogts 2 2-2 1, 6; Brack 0 0-0 1, 0; Lehman 1 4-6 3, 5; Brackeen 0 1-2 1, 1; Alexander 1 5-6 0, 7; TOTALS 7 (1) 12-18 20, 29.

Riley Co. 12 12 8 18 —50

Newton 6 9 11 3 —29

Friday’s game

Newton 55, DeSoto 43

NEWTON (1-1) — Gronau 0 (4) 5-8 1, 17; Scott 0 0-0 1, 0; Grosch 0 0-3 0, 0; McCartney 1 5-8 1, 7; McMullen 3 0-0 2, 6; Brackeen 0 0-0 1, 0; Yoder 0 0-0 0, 0; Vogts 4 2-4 3, 10; Brack 1 0-2 0, 2; Lehman 2 1-3 3, 5; Minkevitch 1 0-0 1, 2; Alexander 2 2-2 4, 6; TOTALS 14 (4) 15-30 18, 55.

DeSOTO (0-2) — Crow 2 (2) 3-4 2, 13; Laudick 0 (1) 0-1 5, 3; Petty 1 (4) 1-1 4, 15; Burford 0 0-0 4, 0; Fisher 2 1-1 5, 5; K.Gorman 1 0-0 3, 2; Williams 1 3-9 1, 5; Spencer 0 0-0 2, 0; TOTALS 7 (7) 8-16 26, 43.

Newton 11 13 21 10 —55

DeSoto 14 11 10 8 —43