Foul Shooting Woes Haunt NHS Boys In Loss

Newtown High School’s boys’ basketball team got to the free throw line a whopping 37 times in Tuesday’s road clash with Bridgeport’s Kolbe Cathedral.

Unfortunately for the Nighthawks, this was an off night from the charity stripe as the Hawks sank just 15 of those freebies. That proved costly in a 63-62 loss, only Newtown’s third loss overall, and second in conference play, this season.

The Nighthawks (12-3 overall and 9-2 in the South-West Conference) fell behind early and trailed almost the entire way but battled back to tie Kolbe (14-1, 9-0) at 60 apiece in the final minute.

Dan Lynch and Casey Tenney sank key 3-pointers down the stretch to help the Hawks draw even before Kolbe sneaked away with the win.

In addition to foul shooting, foul trouble also hurt Newtown. Andy Lapple, Sean Maher, and Josh Engler all fouled out of the game. The Hawks, typically a sharp-shooting team from three-point range, had a bad night from behind the arc as well, connecting on just two of 12 shots.

Newtown played a man-to-man defense in the first half, but the quickness of Kolbe caused the Hawks to drop into a 2-3 zone in the third quarter — which proved to be effective in stopping Kolbe’s penetration and make things interesting down to the wire.

Tenney scored 21 points on a 7-for-11 shooting performance. Engler scored 15 points and pulled down 11 rebounds, Lynch had 10 points, and Maher and George Zaruba each had six points. Zaruba also had six rebounds.

The Nighthawks will host Brookfield on Friday, February 12, at 7 pm, before closing out the regular season with four straight road tilts.

Newtown will visit Notre Dame-Fairfield on Monday, February 16 at 7 pm and will visit Oxford on February 19.