Stakes on the rise for Newark, Somonauk

Newark's Kurt Anderson brings the ball upcourt while Serena's Blake Champman defends Wednesday during a regional semifinal in Hinckley.
Donnell Collins / FOR The Beacon News

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HINCKLEY -- In the regular season, Newark's boys basketball team had a better record than Somonauk.

Except when the two played each other, as Somonauk had the Norsemen's number twice.

On Friday, the two teams will go at it for a third time in the Class 1A Hinckley-Big Rock Regional finals after both won their semifinal games Wednesday. Newark held off a late Serena surge for a 62-58 win in the opener and Somonauk topped Westminster Christian in the second game, 53-48.

"(Newark starter Kurt Anderson) is back, and he wasn't there the first two times, so that's always been the cloud over the whole thing," Somonauk coach Ron Hunt said. "We did what we did and we won the conference tournament, so we're going to go out there and play as hard as we can and have a sense of urgency and do whatever it takes to put ourselves in a position to win the regional."

Newark (22-5) roared out of the gates against Serena, posting a 25-11 lead at the end of one quarter thanks to 11 points from Kyle Anderson. The lead grew to be as large as 36-19 when Kyle Anderson hit a 3-pointer to open the third quarter.

"Any day, any kid can go off on our team," Kyle Anderson said. "We have a lot of versatility."

But Serena was not done.

The Huskers went on a 16-3 run behind center Josh Schleutker's seven points to cut the lead to 39-35, and the game was on from there.

"It was a very physical game, and that's to their advantage," Newark coach Rick Tollefson said. "Our kids are not very physical. We either man up and try to break them down, or do what we did tonight and kind of fall back and wait for the clock to run out."

The game swayed back and forth from the late third quarter to the buzzer, but Newark never surrendered the lead. Serena cut it to 59-58 with 1:23 left on a 3-pointer from Darin Coyer, but an open look for a 3-pointer from Brady Johnson with 5.8 seconds left rimmed out and Newark's Matt Eisnaugle corralled the rebound.

"I was real disappointed," Tollefson said. "They put a lot of pressure on us and we caved. You could see it in our legs. We survived."

Somonauk (18-11) managed to hold a 23-21 lead at the half against Westminster Christian in its semifinal despite being outrebounded 23-8, in the first half. And the tempo was exactly what Hunt feared heading into the game.

"We figured if the game was in the 40s, it was not to our liking," Hunt said. "We did what we had to do to win the game. We didn't rebound very well. Terrible job in the first half."

Westminster (17-11) hung around all night but could never take the lead. Somonauk was able to stretch the lead to as many as nine, 49-40, in the fourth quarter. Westminster got to within 49-46, but Somonauk senior Shayne Peterson put the cap on his fantastic second half with four free throws in the final seconds to put the game away. Peterson scored all 17 of his points in the second half.

"He's got a touch of the flu, something wrong with his hand, got decked in the eye last night and should probably have a stitch in there," Hunt said. "You ask him if he's OK, and he says, 'Oh, yeah.'" Boys Basketball: Class 1A Hinckley-Big Rock Regional