One game after an overtime heartbreaker, Newtown High School’s girls’ lacrosse team got back to its one-goal winning ways with a 6-5 victory at Joel Barlow of Redding.

The Nighthawks won their fourth single-goal nail-biter of the campaign on May 2, following a tough-to-swallow 10-9 setback to visiting New Fairfield on April 28.

In the win over Barlow, the Nighthawks built a second-half lead and held on. Summer Harrell scored three goals and had an assist, Bella Gerace scored twice, Elena Sughrue netted one, and Izzy Butler had a pair of assists. Goaltender Alexa Manfredonia made seven saves. The Nighthawks improved to 10-1 overall.

“Always a good win versus Barlow. They are the reigning SWC Champs so we knew that would be up for this game and we wanted redemption,” said Newtown Coach Maura Fletcher, whose team was beaten by the Falcons in last year’s South-West Conference title contest.

“They play a very tough pressure zone. We were up the whole second half — slowed down the offense a little to keep possession. We usually score more but it wasn’t because we played poorly, I give that to Barlow’s high-pressure defense,” Fletcher added.

The Nighthawks did not get too caught up in bouncing back from the New Fairfield game.

“Every game is one at a time. We don’t look too far forward and we don’t look back. You can’t change what’s already happened. If you don’t win, you learn,” Fletcher said.

The coach said following the New Fairfield clash that there was plenty her team could pull from the setback.

“Sometimes you learn more from a loss,” Fletcher said. “It’s not a terrible thing to be humbled by a loss,” the coach said.

It was a physical game and New Fairfield was called for a handful of violations but the Nighthawks capitalized only once on four player advantages totaling eight minutes.

“We had trouble with turnovers today — made a lot of mental mistakes,” Fletcher said.

Harrell had four goals and two assists, Butler and Erin Phaneuf both had two goals and an assist, Ava Mitchell scored, and Jules Battaglia added a net-finder. Harrell and Allie Bradley each had four draw controls. Manfredonia made eight saves.

Newtown led 6-5 at the half and built an 8-5 lead with 22:11 to play. New Fairfield scored the next four goals for a 9-8 lead with 16:17 to play. The Nighthawks answered when Butler made a nice spin move to set up Phaneuf with 13:35 to play. Solid defense and goaltending, by both sides, kept the game tied.

Despite all of the time that remained, the Nighthawks couldn’t get into double digits for the first time this spring. Ava Romanello had four goals, including the winner 50 seconds into the three-minute overtime period.

Read about Newtown's Thursday Senior Night clash with Immaculate and a May 10 visit to Pomperaug in the May 13 print edition of The Bee.

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