Bits & Pieces

 

By Kim J. Harmon

I

 don’t want to blow my own horn (toot! toot!) but early in the third quarter of the football game on Friday night – very early, while the marching band was still finding its way back to its seat – I said it would be decided on a Casey Kirch field goal. Of course, I said it would be 18 yards and good but it was 35 yards and not. Nearly did get it there, though, but who can blame him? It was the first pressure kick of his career.

Man, Friday was a good day for sports at Newtown High. And we’re not talking about wins, because there was just one. But, excitement – wow. Inside, the volleyball team took one step closer to the CIAC state tournament with a thrilling 3-0 sweep of Bethel. Now, a sweep shouldn’t be all that exciting because, hey, it’s a sweep. But when you see Ally Gellert dig a ball off the floor, watch it rocket off the upper arm of Anne Schneider, see it flutter over the net, and then marvel as it drops just inside the line you know you’re watching something awesome. Outside, the football team wanted to detach itself from a three-game losing streak and wanted to do it against its most bitter rival, Immaculate. A couple of exciting pass plays, a game-saving tackle by Rob Konkos, and it call comes down to a last-second field goal attempt. When Kirch lined up for the kick about six of us hustled our way to the end zone because we wanted to be back there when the ball popped over the cross bar. I’ll tell you, that was a great time. And elsewhere, the girls’ cross country team finished third at the South-West Conference meet with several individuals qualifying for states - which had coach Marsha Caine pretty much beaming ‘round about six o’clock that night.

It seems kind of hard to believe, but Mike Troy has already broken the Newtown High School single-season soccer goal scoring record. There have been some great, great players in the history of the Newtown program, but no one really piled up the numbers. John Ball – he who plays professionally indoors and played with the Chicago Fire of Major League Soccer – scored 25 one year and finished with 50 for his career. Hard as it is to believe (again), Troy may get close to that career total this year.

 

In case anyone is interested (and those following the career of sophomore Chelsea Morin would be), the single-season goal-scoring record for girls’ soccer is 38. Melanie Huss did that. She also set the career-scoring mark with an eye-popping 112. Now that’s piling up the numbers.

There are many days when I wished I lived in Newtown (and not just on those winter days when I know it’s going to take me 90 minutes to drive home to Waterbury in the snow). The kids in this town have it great. A tremendous soccer program, an awesome Babe Ruth baseball and softball program (a few years ago, kids got to meet Bobby Thomson – not that many of them had ever heard of him), a great youth basketball program, and an excellent youth swim program. On Sunday, a whole bunch of young swimmers from Newtown and Brookfield (and even Maryland) got to meet Lenny Krayzelburg, a three-time Olympic gold medalist and the best backstroker on the planet. Man, the kids have it great here.

I know that if I’m having trouble staying awake to see stuff like Alfonso Soriano belting a two-run homer in the bottom of the ninth in Game 4 of the American League Championship Series, then I know kids around here don’t have a prayer. Hey, I know why the games are played late – the networks have to pay the piper and the only way to pay the piper is to put the ads in prime time – but it’s amazing that baseball has yet to figure out that’s why fewer and fewer kids these days care about baseball. When I was 10, I used to run home from school in order to catch the playoffs or World Series on television. When I was 16, I had to start listening to the games in my bed, on the radio, and usually was falling asleep before the ninth inning. It was good for the Lords of Baseball that I was already hooked.