Girls’ Swimming—

Nighthawks Ride Depth To Defeat Weston

By Andy Hutchison

As individual of a competition as swimming may be, the Newtown High School girls’ swimming and diving team showed just how much of a team effort it can turn into on Tuesday night.

Newtown, behind several hard-fought second- and third-place finishes, defeated Weston 97-89 in its first home meet of the season and evened its record to 2-2.

“They’re doing very well. We’ve got a lot of depth,” Coach Mary Atkinson said.

Newtown did take home some top honors at the meet. Megan Baylis was first in the 100 yard breaststroke in a time of 1:18.00, Krysta Gates was first in the 100 butterfly in 1:11.43 and Kelsey McEvoy was first in the 100 freestyle in 1:02.6. As Atkinson pointed out, though, it was her many swimmers who out-touched their opponents, narrowly winning second or third place to earn key points, who combined to earn a bulk of the scoring in the win. Several of those battles for runner-up or third came down to fractions of a second.

“It was very exciting,” the coach said.

In the 200 IM, Maggie Atkinson was second and Baylis was third. In the 500 free, Newtown’s Maggie Hoolehan, Leah Barrett, and Colleen Carroll were second, third, and fourth, respectively. Atkinson was third in the 100 fly, Kat Donahue was third in the 100 free, Evelyn Fahey took third in the 500, Lauren Hutchison was third in the 100 breast, and Barrett claimed third in the 100 back.

The trend continued in diving with Newtown’s Lauren Sudbey finishing runner-up (147 points), Abby Peck finishing third (115) and Ellen Tabler claiming fifth (108). For Tabler, this was her first meet. The gymnast brought her natural talents to the diving board to give it a try. “It’s a nervous excitement,” she said.

Tuesday’s meet served as a win-win-win situation for the Nighthawks. The Hawks had their first home meet, won, and had to fight for the win. In their previous three meets, the Hawks easily beat Bunnell then were toppled by South-West Conference pool powerhouses Pomperaug and New Fairfield.

“It was fun to have our first home meet,” Maggie Atkinson said. “It was exciting — it was good to have a close meet.”

Newtown’s next meet will be Friday at Oxford. Next Friday, October 3, Newtown will host Brookfield at 4 pm.