The Newton Cardinal and Carlisle Wildcat football teams combined for 91 points in their season-opening game in Newton on Friday night in a game heard live on kniakrls.com. KRLS3. The Cardinals won 49-42 on a 12-yard touchdown pass from Caden Klein to Qhjuan Coley with 13-seconds to play. The pass capped a seven-play 70-yard drive by Newton. Klein had a hand in six of the Cardinals’ seven touchdowns, running for one and throwing for five. Newton trailed most of the game, with Carlisle scoring on the game’s opening drive of five plays and 80-yards. The Wildcats led 7-0, 14-0, 14-7, 21-7, 21-14, and 28-14 at the half. The Cardinals tied the score at 28 with a Klein to Finn Martin 48-yard pass with five minutes left in the third quarter. Carlisle retook the lead four minutes later after a seven-play 78-yard drive. But Newton’s Isaiah Hansen tied the score again one play later, with a 64-yard touchdown run. The Cardinals got their first lead with 11:15 left in the game on a 64-yard Klein to Coley pass. The Wildcats answered that touchdown with one of their own after an 80-yard, 13-play drive with 3:39 left in the game.  Newton then set out on their game-winning drive. Unofficially, the Cardinals had 20 first downs and 613-yards of offense, while the Wildcats had 24 first downs and 500-yards of offense. 392 of Newton’s yards were through the air, while Isaiah Hansen accounted for 140 of the Cardinals’221 rushing yards. Head coach Andy Swedenhjelm 

“We have got a lot of guys that can do some good stuff there. It was nice to see Qhjuan stepping up and Finn stepping up, and Isaiah having some big runs. It was just a total team effort from our offense.” 

Newton is 1-0 and will travel to North Polk next Friday night for a 7 p.m. game that can be heard live on KRLS3, with pregame coverage at 6:30 p.m.