Back to business for Newark after romp

NEWARK - There were smiles and laughs all around for Newark's boys Friday on senior night.

A packed house in Jimmy Allen Gymnasium was treated to numerous highlights as the Wildcats closed out a 21-1 regular season, including 10-0 atop the Ohio Capital Conference-Capital Division, with an 85-45 romp against Canal Winchester.

As the seven seniors cut down the nets, posed for pictures and raised the school's all-time win total to 1,577, coach Jeff Quackenbush was already looking ahead to preparations this week for the Division I tournament. The second-seeded Wildcats host No. 43 Whetstone at 7 p.m. Thursday.

"We'll have our walk through tomorrow, then it's time to get back to work on Monday," Quackenbush said.

For now, the Wildcats can savor their impressive performance from Friday, which saw them shoot 56 percent from the floor including 11-of-22 on 3-pointers, out-rebound the Indians 35-18 and come up with 18 steals.

A slow start Friday included a 5-for-13 first quarter and a bad ankle injury to Canal center Matt Jones, who was wheeled out after a 10-minute delay with 5:34 still on the first-period clock. He was smiling and gave a thumb's up, however, as he left to be taken to the hospital.

"It looks like he was going to be OK," said B.J. Duling, who scored 16 points, snagged eight rebounds and had five steals. "After that, we just had to come out with the same energy and execute."

The Wildcats finally got rolling behind a 3-pointer from J.T. Shumate, and his first career dunk off a lob from Justin Carter.

"I did it once before in a game, but it got waved off because of a foul," said Shumate, who led Newark with 17 points including four 3-pointers in a little over two quarters. "We don't usually do it in practice, because coach will yell at us if we miss. So it's normally just a layup."

Newark then put together a second quarter for the ages, scoring 35 points, shooting 13-of-17 from the floor and opening a 47-15 halftime cushion. They started it with a 19-0 run, featuring a pair of windmill dunks off turnovers by Duling, two more 3s by Shumate and another from Carter. Carter also hit a 3 from the left wing just ahead of the halftime buzzer.

"We got a ton of deflections, which was the goal all week," Quackenbush said. "The kids played hard and were very unselfish. It was a great finish for their senior night, and they had fun."

Kobe Long-Weber hit a pair of third-quarter 3-pointers, finishing with three while scoring 13 points and also leading the Wildcats with six steals and handing off three assists. Carter added 10 points and six rebounds, while KeShawn Heard had nine points and Hunter Dennison dished off eight assists and had five steals.

Another second-half highlight came when senior Kaleb Jarrett, forced to miss the season with a football injury, suited up and inbounded the ball. Ten Wildcats cracked the scorebook.

"We moved the ball," Shumate said. "B.J. is very cerebral and can find people."

The Wildcats know they must continue to work on their defense as the tournament looms. The intensity shown Friday was a good sign.

"We have to keep up the hard work in practice," Shumate said. "Keep up the intensity on defense and stay on top of that, because it's hard for teams to maintain that sometimes."

"We want to continue to have fun, but we have to keep executing in practice, and not take a day off," Duling said.

dweidig@newarkadvocate.com

740-328-8557

Twitter: @noz75

Stat Book

Canal 7-8-14-16 — 45

Newark 12-35-23-15 — 85

Canal: 17-41 FG, 6-13 FT, 5-17 3 pt. (Snyder 2, Ca. Metzler, Brown, Smith), 18 Rebounds (Phillips 7), 4 Assists (Snyder 2), 6 Steals (Phillips 2), 17 Turnovers. Scoring: Snyder 5 0-1 12, Ca. Metzler 3 3-3 10, Phillips 2 3-4 7, Brown 3 0-1 7, Smith 1 0-0 3, Harrison-Rawn 1 0-2 2, Landis 1 0-2 2, Co. Metzler 1 0-0 2.

Newark: 34-60 FG, 6-8 FT, 11-22 3 pt. (Shumate 4, Long-Weber 3, Carter 2, Allen-Grover, Jones), 35 Rebounds (Duling 8, Carter 6), 20 Assists (Dennison 8, Long-Weber 3, Carter 3), 18 Steals (Long-Weber 6, Duling 5, Dennison 5),11 Turnovers. Scoring: Shumate 6 1-1 17, Duling 7 2-2 16, Long-Weber 4 2-2 13, Carter 4 0-0 10, Heard 4 1-1 9, Dennison 3 0-0 6, Allen-Grover 2 0-0 5, Quackenbush 2 0-0 4, Jones 1 0-0 3, Haile 1 0-0 2.