Newtown Girls’ Booters Rack Up Goals In Early Going

By Andy Hutchison

Some of the things Marc Kenney, Newtown High School’s girls’ soccer coach, emphasized as being areas of importance came up in the first week of the season. First, ties. Newtown High played to a Class LL-high five deadlocks in 2010, and Kenney pointed to the need to win close games this year.

The Nighthawks went to Pomperaug of Southbury and finished in a season-opening 1-1 tie on September 13, but Kenney and crew were more than satisfied to come away with the dreaded nobody-wins-result in this contest. After all, Newtown had lost to Pomperaug in last year’s South-West Conference tournament.

Melissa Buccino scored Newtown’s lone goal, off an assist from Tressa Scott. Newtown goalkeeper Cait Yakush made eight saves.

“For the first game of the year, both teams played well. It was a good high school game. That was my concern, getting the season off to a good start. And the result, obviously if we didn’t get a loss, then it was a good start,” Kenney said.

Another key was going to be goal-scoring. Kenney entered into the season confident in his defense and goalkeeping and believing his team could really make some noise of it could find some goal-scoring prowess.

After the Pomperaug game, the Nighthawks piled up a cumulative 17 goals in three games — not bad in a sport in which three goals is considered a lot in one contest. Of course, Newtown started the scoring barrage against Kolbe Cathedral, a new-to-the-SWC program that had been a junior varsity-only program in recent years.

In a 6-0 win over visiting Kolbe, September 15 at Treadwell Park’s Tilson Field, several young, up-and-coming Nighthawks had a chance to contribute. Amy Martin had a one goal and an assist, junior-varsity call-up Meaghan Brophy scored two goals, Buccino netted her second of the year, freshman Jessica Keller logged her first high school tally, JV call-up Kailee Dunnigan scored, and Bridget Power and Scott earned assists. Yakush, Alyssa Ruefenacht, and Carli Kuligowski combined to make three saves. Newtown didn’t run the score up and worked on its passing game with substitutions aplenty in this game.

The high-scoring ways continued in somewhat surprising fashion. The next day, Holy Cross visited Blue & Gold Stadium for a contest under the lights in a rematch of last year’s out-of-conference tilt that ended in a 1-1 tie. This time around, it was all Newtown. Martin scored twice and had an assist, and Buccino hit the net once and added a pair of helpers. Power and Keller both scored, and freshman Sarah Lynch had her first high school goal and assist. Scott added an assist, and keepers Yakush and Ruefenacht combined on two saves.

“I thought we played well — I mean we possessed the ball, we scored goals which is obviously a huge benefit for us — against a team that’s not in our conference, that plays a little bit different style than we do. … Twelve goals in two games — I’m pretty excited about that,” Kenney said.

Newtown beat Bethel 5-2 on the road on Monday, September 10. Senior captain and defender Maddy Keane scored, Lynch had a goal and an assist, Martin scored twice and registered an assist, Scott record a goal, and Power contributed an assist. Yakush made ten saves as the Nighthawks improved to 3-0-1 overall, and 2-0-1 in the SWC.

The Hawks will try to keep up their high-scoring ways as some of the likely tougher teams stand in the way. Following games with Stratford (Wednesday, after The Bee sports section went to press), and Notre Dame-Fairfield on Saturday, September 24, the Hawks expect to start having their work cut out in a September 27 clash with always-tough rival Masuk of Monroe (7 pm at Blue & Gold).

Kenney doesn’t expect his team to scored five or six goals every night, but he does want to see his team capitalize on its chances — however many there may be depending on the opponent.

“If you don’t score those in a game that’s a bigger game, you know the Masuks and the Barlows, and the Immaculates — if that happens, you really don’t win those games because you’re missing opportunities,” the coach said. “So, for us I think it’s not so much about the number of goals as it is about the capitalization on the opportunities that we do, in fact, get.”

A key to the team’s early success, Keane believes, is cohesiveness. “Our team chemistry on and off the field has been great and we want to keep it up,” she said.