Nightmarish half costs New Hampton boys

It was a tale of two halves — one good, even very good at times; one horrendous — for New Hampton boys basketball Monday night.
Unfortunately, it was the bad half that carried the night as Crestwood outscored the Chickasaws 45-14 over the final 16 minutes of the game to roll to a 72-42 win and clinch the Northeast Iowa Conference championship.
“I’m not going to sit here and say we played well, obviously that didn’t happen, especially in the second half,” New Hampton coach Ryan Rausch said after his team fell to 8-11 overall and 3-8 in NEIC play. “Some of it is the way Cresco played. That’s a good team over there, but we showed in the first half that we can play with teams like that.”
New Hampton got eight points from Tristan Sweitzer during New Hampton’s 14-8 run that started the second quarter and gave the Chickasaws a 25-19 lead, and a 3-pointer by Sweitzer, who finished the first half with 17 points, late in the quarter helped New Hampton take a 28-27 halftime lead.
More on the story may be found in the Feb. 8 Tribune.