Softball Team Bounces Back With Powerful Efforts

By Andy Hutchison

Newtown High School’s softball team went from being winless after three games to being perfect two weeks into the season. How is that possible? That’s the beauty of nonconference games, of which the Nighthawks lost three to begin the year. Newtown got its first win of the campaign in its first game that counts in the South-West Conference standings, nipping Bethel 3-2 on April 15, then followed that up with a 6-3 win over Brookfield in another SWC clash on April 18.

“It’s a big thing for our confidence as a team, as a unit, and as players to get a couple wins,” Newtown Coach Bob Guererra said. “These are league games so, as [Assistant Coach Lin Hertberg] says, ‘We’re leading the league and we’re defending champs,’ so that’s where we want to be.”

The 2010 SWC champs are trying to defend their title with a slightly new look after four key players graduated, and things are looking up after a 6-2 loss to Masuk of Monroe on April 14, in the first of two clashes between the foes (the rematch on May 11 at Masuk will be an official SWC game).

At Bethel, Newtown rallied in the seventh for a comeback win. Colleen Cunningham belted a game-tying home run, and Danielle Shine singled and eventually scored what proved to be the decisive run on an Emma Herring groundout. Megan Gibbons doubled and scored on a Cunningham single in the second inning for Newtown’s first run of the game. Herring struck out seven Bethel batters in the win.

Brookfield visited Treadwell Park and battled Herring and company in another competitive conference clash. Newtown catcher Jessica Gibbons belted a pair of home runs, connecting on a solo homer in the first and a two-run shot, after Kayla O’Grady singled, in the third.

The Bobcats scored a run in the fourth but Newtown got the run back — and more — in the bottom half of the inning. Natalie Dunn doubled, Cunningham singled, and Morgan Macchiarulo ripped a two-run double for a 5-1 cushion.

 Newtown centerfielder Monica Macchiarulo saved at least two runs in the fifth when, with two runners aboard, she made a running catch with her back to the infield.

“It feels good. We needed these two wins,” Jessica Gibbons said.

Her sister, Megan, who connected for a home run in the season-opening loss to Holy Cross of Waterbury, echoed Jessica’s thoughts and added, “It was a big confidence booster for us. We’re working better as a team now,” she said.

Newtown wasn’t sharp in a 6-2 loss to Pomperaug of Southbury in game two, but the team seems to have put early base-running, hitting, and fielding woes in the rearview mirror.

“I think the bounce-back is a big thing because with young kids they have to believe they can win, and starting out 0-3 and things weren’t quite going our way — we faced some tough pitching — you can’t help to question yourself, whether or not you can win,” Guererra said. “A couple key hits in the first game got us on the road to winning, some more explosions here, and it’s a momentum thing — you start to believe in yourself.”