Newtown High School’s girls’ lacrosse team’s Class L State Tournament opening-round opponent, coincidently, was a nonconference team it had matched up with during a regular-season clash scheduled to prepare the Nighthawks for these playoffs: Glastonbury.

Newtown, which had its way with the Guardians in a 17-8 triumph on May 14, found itself in a battle through one half of play during the rematch before pulling away for a 17-11 triumph.

Very similar outcome, but a vastly different path to that end result (NHS led 13-4 at the half of their first clash) — under much different circumstances. The No. 2 Nighthawks move on to the quarterfinals and the No. 15 Guardians saw their season come to an end.

The Hawks will host No. 10 Ridgefield on Friday, June 3 at 5 pm.

Glastonbury jumped out to an early 3-0 lead before the Nighthawks went on a 7-1 scoring run to establish a 7-4 lead. The Guardians got a pair of late first-half tallies to bring the score to 7-6 at the half.

Newtown scored twice in the opening 56 seconds of the second half and outscored the Guardians 8-2 to begin the second half. Elena Sughrue netted her third of the game off an assist from Summer Harrell to make it 9-6, and the Nighthawks were off and rolling.

Izzy Butler pushed the score to 10-6 on a free position shot with 21:39 to go. The Guardians scored with exactly 21 minutes left on the clock, but Newtown’s Erin Phaneuf got possession off the ensuing draw, ran the ball in herself, and gave Newtown an answer goal just 13 ticks off the clock later with her third of the game.

A Glastonbury tally made it 11-8, but Butler netted her third of the game with 17:52 to play, restoring Newtown’s four-goal advantage.

Shannon Kelleher forced a turnover on the defensive end and Harrell was set up by Jules Battaglia for a fast-break net-finder and a 13-8 lead with 15:42 left. Sughrue scored again when she circled in front of the net to whip home a shot less than a minute later. Battaglia scored for a 15-8 lead with 14 minutes to play.

The teams traded goals and Glastonbury finally scored two straight and trailed 16-11 with 4:20 left.

Newtown called timeout to prevent the visitors from getting any traction.

“I was thinking we can’t let them get on a run because anything can happen in lacrosse,” Newtown Coach Maura Fletcher said.

Out of the pause in the action, Newtown’s players chewed some time off the clock but also added to the lead. Battaglia’s second of the game made it 17-11 with 2:40 left.

Butler finished with four goals and three assists, Sughrue had four goals and two assists, Phaneuf logged three net-finders and added one assist, Battaglia had two goals and an assist, Gerace scored twice, and Harrell and Brooke Bulkley each netted one.

Goaltender Alexa Manfredonia made a handful of saves. Gerace led Newtown with a trio of groundball scoops, and Battaglia and Harrell each had two ground balls.

The Nighthawks won 16 of the 30 draw controls, and that was a major difference from the first meeting, in which NHS won 19 of 28 draws to dominate the possession game.

Fletcher thought her team might have come out a bit passively as a result of the regular-season domination.

“It’s the old ‘we beat them by a lot last time’ so we kind of came out flat,” Fletcher said. “In the beginning we were just kind of sitting back and not pressuring the ball at all.”

The close score had Newtown in need of a spark at the half.

“It was pretty much ‘just play for the seniors,’ because we didn’t want it to be our last game,” Butler said.

Fletcher added that a key to the turnaround and pull-away was the way her Hawks pressured the ball as the game went on.

“I just think our defense was disruptive in the second half and when we got the ball we scored goals,” Newtown’s coach said. “It was definitely a collective effort.”

Ridgefield comes out of a tough conference and is a deceptive No. 10 seed given the level of competition the team faced day in and day out.

“It’s an FCIAC team. They’re always good and competitive,” Fletcher said.

Ridgefield’s losses include contests with JFCIAC powers Darien, New Canaan, and Wilton, as well as a nonconference battle with John Jay of New York. One of Ridgefield’s wins was an overtime thriller over New Fairfield, a South-West Conference rival Newtown lost to in overtime in the regular season before losing to New Fairfield again in the conference semifinals.

“We look forward to a competitive matchup and we haven’t seen them so it will be fun to play someone we haven’t seen yet,” Fletcher said.

“Tough team — we’re looking forward to it though,” Butler added.

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