Newtown High School’s boys’ volleyball team has a young, somewhat inexperienced team, but that is not preventing Coach Sandy Doski and company from thinking about winning or being in position to win conference and maybe even state trophies.

“Our goals for this season are to again be [in contention for a South-West Conference championship) and to make states. Hopefully we can get past the semifinals in states this year and get to the finals,” Doski said.

“We have a very young group this year. Even though we have several seniors, most of them lost a year to COVID and therefore are coming to varsity with only one year of JV experience. We are going to take one game at a time and focus on what we can control on our side of the net and not worry about what other teams are doing on their side,” Doski said.

“The attitude of our group is amazing. They come to practice every day willing to put in the effort to improve and are striving to get better each day. It will take a bit to get all of them used to the faster pace of a varsity game, but they are all ready to take on that challenge,” the coach added.

Captains and returnees are setter/opposite or right side hitter Matt Mattera and outside hitter Thad Teraszkiewicz.

Rounding out the Varsity roster are seniors Liam O’Sullivan, Will Connors, Lewis Tomaj, Collin Granville, Carlo Marano, and Jon Ingersoll; and juniors Ben Davis, Braden Hazard, and Nico Diaz.

Always-tough Joel Barlow of Redding, which defeated NHS in last year’s conference title contest, “has a good core group of players that have played throughout the summer and winter months and are quickly gelling as a team already,” Doski said. “They will be giving us the most trouble this year.”

There stands to be a lot of parity throughout the SWC, Doski believes. There is a new school in the conference mix as Brookfield joined this year. Oxford, Masuk of Monroe, and Kolbe Cathedral of Bridgeport round out the SWC.

“We all lost a lot of players last year, so I anticipate that we are all in a rebuilding year and those games will go to the team that comes ready to play,” Doski said.

Due to the conference being small, teams have a high number of nonconference matches. Specifically, NHS will play eight, beginning with the season-opener, Monday, April 4, when Trumbull comes to town at 5:45 pm.

Sports Editor Andy Hutchison can be reached at andyh@thebee.com.