By Steve Bigham

The first week of the 2000 softball season has been a whirlwind for senior pitcher Cathy Byrne and her teammates on the Newtown High School softball team.

First, Newtown opens the season at Brookfield last Friday with Byrne striking out 13 Bobcat batters as Newtown wins, 7-4. It is the first time the Nighthawks have beaten Brookfield in five years.

Then, Byrne whiffs 18 Pomperaug hitters to lead Newtown to a 1-0 win at home on Saturday. The 18 K’s are believed to be a school record.

But as Newtown opened league play Monday afternoon at Treadwell Park in a rematch with Brookfield, Byrne was no where to be seen. People on the hill wondered, “Where is Cathy?” Truth be told, she was sitting on a bus, coming back from a chorale concert that her teacher refused to let her out of.

Byrne arrived at the game in the third inning in her chorale dress. Visibly disappointed at being late, she frantically put on her uniform. However, by the time she fired her first pitch, Newtown already trailed, 8-2. She would go on to nail down eight more strikeouts to give her 39 for the season -  but the locals never scored again.

Sophomore Kristin Caposella started Monday’s game and pitched well enough to win. However, Brookfield scored six unearned runs in the third inning to put the game out of reach.

“After that, you can’t afford to give up any outs. You can’t play bunt and run down six runs,” noted second-year coach Paul LaFrancesca. “That inning took away all my moves. We had to smack the ball around the field and we weren’t able to do that.”

This week’s loss drops Newtown to 2-1 overall, 0-1 in the South-West Conference. That’s a far better start than a year ago when Newtown dropped its first seven. Incidentally, Monday’s loss broke a seven-game win streak for the Nighthawks who won their final five games of the season last year.

In three games, Newtown has already shown that it is a far better team than a year ago. In 1999, Newtown would not have even dreamed of beating a team like Brookfield, but Byrne is throwing smoke, senior Kristen Bandura is swinging a hot bat (.444 average) and junior Lauren McCusker has been a standout in the leadoff spot. Lauren Blomberg, Kate Bouteiller and Jessica Omasta have also played well.

“Brookfield killed us last year. We’re a better team from top to bottom,” La Francesca said. “If we see them in the playoffs, they’re ours.”

In its season opener, Bandura collected three RBI, Lauren Blomberg had two hits and the entire team committed just one error.

Against Pomperaug, Newtown scored the only run of the game in the third inning. Second baseman McCusker led off the inning with a single and eventually scored when the Pomperaug leftfielder lost Byrne’s fly ball in the sun. Byrne ended up on second on the play.

On the mound, Byrne was all but unhittable, striking out the side in the first, second and third innings. Twice, the Panthers managed to load the bases only to see Byrne pitch her way out of it. In the seventh, Pomperaug had the tying run on second base, but, in typical Byrne fashion, Cathy struck out the final batter to secure the win.

All three of Newtown’s scrimmages were canceled, so the locals were forced to take part in their first “live” action in games that really counted.

With a week of play now under their belt, the Nighthawks were scheduled to travel to Staples of Westport Thursday. On Monday, they travel to Stratford and then face Pomperaug in Southbury on Tuesday.