NHS Boys’ Hope For Rematches,  Gear Up For SWC Title Push

By Andy Hutchison

Heading into Wednesday’s scheduled regular-season finale at New Fairfield (after The Bee sports section went to press), the Newtown High School boys’ basketball team had just three losses. Two of those were to teams the Nighthawks would love to face again — for more reasons than one.

For starters, those defeats — to South-West Conference foes Kolbe Cathedral of Bridgeport and Stratford — were heartbreakers to highly-touted teams. What’s more, rematches could mean winning, or at least being in position to win, the SWC Tournament this coming week.

“We’ve got to get there first,” Newtown Coach John Quinn said. “I’d love to see them in the [semifinals] and finals, but I can’t control that.”

First things first. Newtown will have to win its quarterfinal round matchup (opponent not determined as of Wednesday) on Saturday, February 27. Newtown is locked in as the third seed, will face the No. 6 team and, pending Wednesday’s results, could potentially face Pomperaug of Southbury – for the third time this season. If the games unfold as expected, Newtown — the tournament’s third seed — could face No. 2 Kolbe in the SWC semis on March 2 and then face No. 1 Stratford in the championship game on March 4.

Could happen. Maybe. If this happens and that happens. It’s all contingent on the pieces falling into place but one thing’s set in stone: The Nighthawks want things to play out this way.

“I’m old school — I’m one for fate. I believe in a story here,” Quinn said.

Newtown is hungry for a rematch with Stratford because the Hawks let a 15-point lead, and the chance to knock Stratford from the ranks of the unbeaten, slip away in a three-point loss on January 19. Then, on February 9, Newtown missed 22 free throws in a tough-to-swallow one-point loss to Kolbe.

“We absolutely feel we’re as good as both teams,” Quinn said.

Newtown has rolled through most of the competition. The Nighthawks have won by double digits a dozen times. Newtown, in a February 17 game at Notre Dame-Fairfield, rolled 83-59. Several players contributed on the score sheet, with Josh Engler leading the way with 18 points. Casey Tenney scored 14, Andy Lapple had 10, Dan Lynch and Sean Maher each had 9, Peter Manos added 8, and Matt Datin contributed 6 in the win.

Of course, success isn’t contingent only on scoring and Newtown’s defense is certainly a strength. As Quinn pointed out, Newtown allowed very few second-chance opportunities against Notre Dame.

The Hawks had their way with Oxford 68-39 on February 19 and defeated Pomperaug 65-54 on February 22. In that game, Engler led the charge in the first half and finished with 17 points, and Tenney had 19 points and helped seal the win from the free throw line. Foul shooting has been a bit of a struggle for the Hawks this winter but Newtown seems to have come around from the charity stripe just in time. Led by Tenney’s 11-for-13 performance from the line, the Hawks were a cumulative 25-for-33 in the Pomperaug game. “It’s improving,” Quinn said.

Newtown is also a road-tested team. Of 20 games, only six were at the familiar confines of Newtown High’s Hawks Nest.

“When we get on a roll we’re just unstoppable,” said Lynch, who quickly acknowledged that unstoppable “is a strong word.”

But hey, how many SWC foes are going to argue with Lynch? Newtown has been as dominant as Kolbe and Stratford have been against the rest of the conference.

“We play well together — under pressure especially,” Lynch said.

The Hawks have won on a consistent basis since the season’s opening tip-off back in December, but Newtown has gotten better as the season has unfolded. The key to Newtown’s improvement during the course of the season: “It’s definitely conditioning,” said Lynch, adding that Assistant Coach Brian Cragin’s sprinting drills in practice have enabled the team to outrun opponents in the third and fourth quarters of games.

“That’s definitely come in hand in the second half,” Lynch said.

A strength of the Nighthawks has been to force turnovers or get to rebounds and push the pace to score points in transition. They have scored 70 or more points six times and scored at least 60 points in 12 contests.

Newtown carried a 16-3 overall record into Wednesday’s finale. By the end of next week, the Hawks would like to have 20 wins under their belts.

“If we continue to defend, don’t let them get second and third shots — the way we can score, we can play with anybody. So this might be one of those years,” Quinn said.