Miami East started their game off against a battled and bruised Newton team with some hot shooting and easy buckets off turnovers to cruise to a 70 – 48 win.

“The defense set the tone of the game” noted East Coach Allen Mack. Logan Carey scored 23 points with many of his baskets coming in transition that were set up from Dan Hickman. Hickman finished the night with 15 points and 8 assists.

Newton was without the services of two of their starters. Senior Bryce Hodges is out for the year with a torn ACL and senior starting point guard Kale Booher is out for few weeks with a broken bone on his hand.

“Our guys played hard tonight” noted Newton Coach Neil Hans “and I’m real proud of our effort.” Freshman Ryan Payne started his first varsity contest for the Indians and along with Seniors Trevor Lavy, Lyle Hussong, Levi Hahn and Jason Powell were all mentioned by Hans with their effort on this night.

Without the presence of Hodges and experience of Booher at the point, the Vikings were able to disrupt the Indian’s offense and create scoring opportunities from their defensive efforts for the entire game.

“Our defense made them stretch their offense out further out on the floor and our guys did a great job of keeping their arms in the passing lanes” noted Coach Mack when describing his team’s zone defense on the night.

“We were able to focus on Powell. Logan Carey and Dan Hickman did a great job the entire night on keeping an eye on where Powell was on the floor” continued Mack.

The Vikings were able to keep Powell scoreless in the first quarter and limited him to 2 points in the first half.

After Hickman started the game with a trey, the Vikings followed with 2 buckets in transition off turnovers that forced Newton to call a time out with only a minute and half expired off the clock. Newton narrowed the gap to 3 points coming out of the timeout, but Hickman busted his second 3 of the quarter to start a 17 to 4 run to that gave the Vikings a 24 – 8 advantage at the end of one.

Newton narrowed the gap in the second quarter on the efforts of their seniors and got it as close as seven points near the end of the stanza. The Viking’s Trevor Coomes drained a big 3 near the end of the quarter to snap the Indian’s momentum and East carried an 8 point lead into the break.

East started the second half strong with more buckets off untimely and misguided Indian passes in the passing lanes. Logan Carey scored 8 of his game high 23 points in the quarter all on lay-ups in high gear from East pushing the ball up the floor.

“Logan does an excellent job of finishing strong in transition” noted Mack. “He does a good job of keeping his body in control going full speed.”

Payne started Newton’s final run of the night when his deuce that narrowed the gap to 14 points with just over 3 minutes to play in the 3rd quarter. Powell finally broke free with some long range jumpers that resulted in three treys in a row for the Indian sharp shooter. Newton narrowed the gap to as close as 10 points with a few minutes remaining in the quarter, but found themselves down 11 points entering the final 8 minutes.

In the 4th quarter Coach Hans tried mixing things up for Newton by putting in a half court trap. In hind site he noted that running a press late in the game to make up ground is where the team missed the quickness and experience of Hodges and Booher the most. “When you’re down 13 points in the 4th quarter you have to try something and it didn’t work out for us tonight. Sometimes you just have to say that you got beat by a better team and I think Miami East was the better team tonight.”

Scoring by quarters

Miami East…24…33…51…70
Newton………8…25…40…48

Miami East
Hickman – 15
Miller – 4
Carey – 23
Vega – 2
Dunivan – 7
Wolf – 4
Coomes – 7
Beard – 2
Deal – 4
Mitchell - 2
FG% 50.9 (26-51) FT% 57.6 (15-26)

Newton
Powell – 17
Lavey – 8
King – 6
Payne – 4
Hutton – 4
Hussong – 4
Hahn - 5
FG% 38.7 (19-49) FT% 66.7 (6-9)

3 Point Goals
Miami East – 3 (Hickman 2, Coomes)
Newton – 4 (Powell 3, Hahn)

JV Game: Miami East 57 – Newton 46