Newtown High School Sluggers Look To Overcome Mini Slide

By Andy Hutchison

BRIDGEPORT — It’s only two games, but the Newtown High School baseball team was getting so accustomed to playing well and winning that after back-to-back setbacks, followed by a game postponed by rain, the Nighthawks must have entered the middle of this week feeling as if they were in a full-fledged slump.

Newtown suffered back-to-back losses for the first time this season, losing a 7-6 nail-biter to Notre Dame-Fairfield on April 28 and falling 6-3 to Weston in a rare game at the home of the Atlantic League’s Bridgeport Bluefish, The Ballpark At Harbor Yard, on April 30.

Against Notre Dame-Fairfield, pitcher Mike Tobin “pitched his heart out,” Newtown Coach Matt Memoli said. The Nighthawks battled from a 3-0 deficit in the sixth to take the lead, only to fall a run short. Andy Lapple had three hits, and George Zaruba and Kyle Kromberg had doubles.

Against Weston, the Nighthawks had another chance to earn their eighth win and clinch a state playoff berth. But Newtown fell to 7-4 overall. Weston, meanwhile, improved to 8-3 and solidified a state playoff spot.

Newtown fell behind 4-1 thanks, in part, to a uncharacteristic three errors in the field. Newtown climbed to within a run. In the bottom of the sixth inning, Kromberg and Zaruba walked, and Bryan Czel smacked a long two-run double off the left field wall. The Nighthawks, however, got no closer and Weston regained its three-run lead a half inning later before closing out the win.

Newtown Coach Matt Memoli said his team was been plagued by errors and being tentative during the past couple of games and added that he expected his team to get back to its fundamentally sound ways.

“We’ve hit a patch where we’re just not doing the little things right,” Memoli said. “I feel like we need to just keep working hard during practice and keep going about our business in the right way with a positive mental outlook.”

Despite the loss to Weston, it was a thrilling opportunity for the Nighthawks to play in front of large contingents of fans from both schools at a professional team’s stadium.

“It was definitely great coming out here,” Czel said. “I’ve been looking forward to it all year.”

“Obviously, winning is always better than losing, but when you look back on this — this is going to be one of those nights we say ‘now that was a nice time,’” Memoli added.

The Nighthawks are confident they’ll enjoy some of their upcoming games a lot more as they try to get back to their winning ways.

“I think with that one win we can put ourselves back on track,” Czel said.

With that win, which could have come as early as Wednesday when the Hawks were scheduled to host Joel Barlow (after The Bee sports section went to press), the Nighthawks would ensure that they would play more than the scheduled 20 games, but they don’t simply want to qualify for the state playoffs.

“We’re looking past just qualifying and playing in states. We want to do damage in states and try to compete for a conference title,” Memoli said.

The Nighthawks will visit Immaculate of Danbury on Friday, May 7, and will visit Oxford on Saturday, May 8, in a game rescheduled from this past Monday due to rain. The Nighthawks return home on Monday to entertain Pomperaug of Southbury, at Fairfield Hills at 6 pm.

The Hawks play three games in four days next week, including road contests at New Fairfield on May 12 and at Bunnell in Stratford on May 13.