Nighthawk Baseball Team Continues Winning Ways

By Andy Hutchison

Newtown High School’s baseball team won its third, fourth, and fifth straight games this past week, crushing visiting Bunnell of Stratford 19-5 on April 14, pulling out a dramatic 5-4 win over Stratford at home on April 15, and going on the road for an 8-0 blanking of New Milford on Monday.

In the win over Bunnell, the Nighthawks got home runs off the bats of George Zaruba and Bryan Czel, who had two and three runs batted in, respectively. Kyle Kromberg and Colby Brown had triples and Kromberg had two RBI. Evan Noonan had a single and two stolen bases, and scored three times. Andy Lapple had a hit and scored three times and John Fracker had two hits and an RBI.

 Pitcher RJ Roman went four innings and allowed only one run, and Mike Tobin had three strikeouts in relief.

Newtown had to come from behind to defeat Stratford, overcoming deficits of 4-0 and 4-2. The Nighthawks tied the game in the fifth and got the winning run — in walk-off style — in the seventh. Lapple singled, took second base and third on a couple of passed balls and scored on Zaruba’s long single to the fence. Zaruba came up with the winning hit with no outs and said he wasn’t feeling any pressure.

“I had a good hitter behind me,” said Zaruba, speaking of catcher Brandon Rosenberger. “So I wasn’t looking to swing at any bad pitches.”

Zaruba had three hits, Lapple also had three hits and stole two bases. Evan Noonan came up with a pair of hits and also swiped two bases, and Kromberg tripled and drove in a run.

“It was good to see different guys stepping up in big situations,” NHS Coach Matt Memoli said.

The coach added that Kyle Packer and Noonan were among the players who made contributions in this thrilling win. He added that Joe Fedak had command of his pitches and was aggressive, routinely coming up with first-pitch strikes. Fedak threw a four-hit complete game with five strikeouts and walked just one batter.

“It was nice to see us win a close game — it really was,” Memoli said.

Newtown got more solid starting pitching in the win over New Milford. In fact, the Hawks got another complete game effort from hurler Chris Haylon, who tossed a three-hitter with three strikeouts.

Czel was a homerun shy of hitting for the cycle. In addition to getting a single, double and triple, Czel scored two times. Ryan Tita had a triple and three RBI, Noonan was 1-for-2 with two more stolen bases and Lapple was 1-for-2 with a single, RBI, and run scored.

Newtown carried a 5-1 record into Wednesday’s home game with Bethel (after The Bee sports section went to press). The Nighthawks will play two straight games against Brookfield — Friday, April 23 on the road and Monday at home at 3:45 pm.