Newtown High School’s girls’ volleyball team dropped a 3-0 decision to host Joel Barlow of Redding on October 2, bounced back with a 3-2 win at Notre Dame-Fairfield on October 4, then fell 3-1 at New Milford on October 7.

The Nighthawks were competitive against the seven-time South-West Conference champion Barlow Falcons who, like Newtown, has a bit of a new look following graduation of players from a year ago. Barlow prevailed by scores of 25-22, 25-19, 25-19.

Against Barlow, Genevieve Murray had seven kills, and Veronica Kroha and Natalie Horn each had five kills. Kroha had two aces, Horn and Kira Smith both had four digs, and Lauren Belden had two aces and four digs.

“I think we need to work on our mental play. We all have the talent but we get scared of the name,” said Kroha, whose team lost to Barlow in last year’s SWC championship match, Newtown’s third straight appearance in the title match. “We can learn from this and try to beat them the next time.”

Newtown will host Barlow on October 30 at 5:30 pm. It was almost a foregone conclusion that the NHS-Barlow regular-season previews for the pinnacle battle in recent years, but there are more strong teams in the SWC this fall. One of them is unbeaten New Milford.

In the New Milford match, the Green Wave won by scores of 25-21, 25-17, 19-25, 25-18. Sarah Nowacki had six kills and six digs; Horn had two aces and five digs; and Kroha had five kills and a pair of aces.

Against Notre Dame, the Nighthawks overcame a two games to none deficit to win 23-25, 15-25, 25-13, 25-15, 15-12. Nowacki had eight kills, nine aces, and four digs; Kroha had ten kills; Murray compiled eight kills; Smith registered seven kills, five aces, and two digs; Horn had seven digs and two aces; and Lauren Belden had three aces.