By Kim J. Harmon

T

here is nothing like an unfortunate circumstance – in this case, an injury to a star player – to help some people find out what they are really capable of achieving. Does that sound like the theme of a really bad television movie? Well, it’s life – the life the Newtown High School girls’ basketball team is now living without Amanda Marsilio.

Marsilio tore her anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) in a scrimmage against Ridgefield a couple weeks ago and will miss the entire 1999-2000 season while embarking on a sometimes painful, six-month path of recovery. The injury came less than a week before the Lady Nighthawks were set to open a season in which they fully expected to be one of the teams with a reasonable shot at a South-West Conference championship.

But has the injury dashed those expectations?

Kate Ryan said, “It was in the back of our minds, but I think everyone knew the strength we had on this team.”

Strength not just of talent, apparently, but of spirit as well. It’s one thing, I think, to see a teammate go down with a torn ACL but quite another to see a friend go down. If you can just keep in mind the impact on the team, then it’s really not too difficult to find ways to compensate – even in some small way – out on the court. That’s why teams carry 10, 11 or even 12 players. To compensate for those times when someone is hurt. But that is not the only consideration. It can’t be.

“We were a lot more concerned for her,” Jayme Beckham said of those first couple of days when Marsilio was injured and the diagnosis on her knee hadn’t been fully discovered.

Without Amanda on the floor, the Lady Nighthawks have had to plumb the depths of their talent. As a bi-product of that injury, players like Lori Iwanicki, Lauren Adamek, and Mary Bell have seen a lot more minutes on the floor and have responded magnificently. I mean, there can be no other way to describe it.

With the 31-point win over Joel Barlow, the win over Danbury, the 34-point bombing of Joel Barlow when they were depleted even further, I think the Lady Nighthawks are probably discovering more about themselves than they possibly could have expected.

But even though it seems like the ravenous defense, the lightning speed, the strength that Masella brings to the post, and the ability for everyone on the team to put the ball in the basket could still put the Lady Nighthawks in a position to fight for a league championship (of course, it is still very early), Ryan put it simply when she said, “We miss Amanda and we still need her.”

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Andrew Gellert and the Harvard Crimson will be coming to Connecticut on Tuesday, December 21, for a 7 pm contest against Sacred Heart University of Fairfield.

As of this writing, Harvard is off to a 3-4 start to the 1999-2000 season . . . although it was a three-game winning streak to start the season and a four-game losing streak to follow.

Gellert is playing more than 30 minutes a game and is among the team leaders in steals and assists. He had a 17-point effort in a big win over Lehigh and he finished that night with seven rebounds and six assists (see box score on page B-2).

So, go down to Fairfield and see the Crimson play.

If you can’t make it, the team will be back in Connecticut in early 2000 with games against Yale University and the University of Hartford.

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One of the nicest stories I had an opportunity to cover last winter was that of Amanda Morici. If you remember, Morici returned to the Newtown High School wrestling team after missing a season recovering from an injury and found herself with a permanent role on the team.

Not only did she wrestle well, winning a few matches, she wrestled extremely well at the South-West Conference championships - losing in an almost epic overtime match.

Well, it seems Amanda is back on the mat - this time as a freshman at Roger Williams College (see page B-2). According to her mother, Amanda hadn’t intended to wrestle in college (which would have suited her mother quite nicely, thank you much) but coach Dave Kemmy was exceedingly persistent in his desire to have Amanda on his team and he finally wore her down.

Amanda will be wrestling at 133 pounds for a team which won the Pilgrim_League championship a year ago.

That’s great.

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Let’s wish the Newtown High School boys’ basketball team luck as it embarks on a tough - and that should be with a capital T - opening to the 1999-2000 season.

It starts with Warren_Harding on_Thursday, Bloomfield on Saturday (in Bloomfield) and then Kolbe-Cathedral on Tuesday. Good heavens - that’s all_I can say.