By Steve Bigham

SOUTHBURY – Coach Rich Pesce was quite sure he would get strong finishes from his top three runners Tuesday afternoon in Southbury – but the unknown was whether or not he would get his fourth and fifth runners in ahead of the competition.

With a ton of injuries setting in, Pesce has had to carefully fit in the pieces in what has been something of a jigsaw-puzzle-kind-of-season for the Nighthawks. What with the loss of AJ Palmer and Chris DiNoto, Newtown appeared to be in a bit of an uphill battle against both Pomperaug and Foran, two teams considered neck-and-neck with the Newtown team.

But just when it looked hopeless, along came senior Brandon Kirch and freshman Tyler Hull, who put on the afterburners to give the Nighthawks what turned out to be an easy sweep of Pomperaug (25-31), New Fairfield (15-50) and Foran (26-41). The wins raised Newtown’s record to an unlikely 10-2.

“We knew what we would get out of our one, two and three runners. We’ve been looking for our other runners to step up into those four and five spots. Brandon and Tyler did that for us today,” said Pesce, who called this week’s trifecta a high point on the season.

Newtown is not blessed with the kind of talent it had a year ago, when it went 17-1, but “I’ve got a bunch of overachievers on this team,” Pesce noted.

Once again, it was senior Jeff Heller who led Newtown’s finishers, crossing the line in 18 minutes, 7 seconds for second place overall. Foran’s Kevin Simeone blew past the competition for first place overall in 17:26. Rob Rosasco of Pomperaug was third, covering the 3.1-mile course in 18:17.

Junior David Rod continued his fine season for Newtown with a fourth place finish overall (second for Newtown) in 18:24.

Senior Ryan Ignatius battled his way to the finish line to take third place for Newtown and fifth overall in 18:50. His last-gasp effort to beat out Ben Webster of Pomperaug was a high point for the season. Early on, however, Ignatius looked tight and struggled to keep up the pace.

“I finally got my mind together and realized that this was an important meet,” Ignatius said. “All of us had to step up, not just the four and five runners.”

Hull finished 12th overall (fourth for Newtown) in 19:44, while Kirch crossed the line in 13th place (fifth for Newtown) in 19:49).

Another inspiring moment came when junior Andrew Lysaght blew by an opposing runner during the final leg of the race. The effort gave Lysaght a top 20 finish in 20:44.

Dana Robinson finished 15th overall in 20:05.

Last week, the Nighthawks split their dual meet at New Milford, defeating Notre Dame and falling to the host Green Wave. Heller finished first overall in 16:34, David Rod was third in 17:05 and Ignatius was fourth in 17:11. Hull finished 11th in 18:15, Kirch was 12th in 18:21 and Dan Maxwell was 13th in 18:26.

Robinson was 19th overall in 18:36.

Newtown will compete the Wickham Invitational this Saturday in East Hartford/Manchester. Next week, the cross-country squad heads to Bethel to take on Masuk, Joel Barlow and the host Wildcats.

The South-West Conference (SWC) championships (also to be held at Bethel) will take place October 19.