NHS Boys’ Soccer Team Looks To Carry Over Game Two Sharpness

By Andy Hutchison

The scores don’t tell the whole story, but Newtown High School’s boys’ soccer team made significant improvements from its nail-biting first-game loss to the second of the campaign, a three-goal win.

Following a 3-2 season-opening loss at Oxford on September 14, the Nighthawks blanked visiting Immaculate of Danbury 3-0 at Treadwell Park on September 16.

“We played with more intensity,” Newtown junior Josh Barrett said of the team’s improvement.

The Nighthawks believed they should have won that first game with ease, but tried to learn from the setback, put the outcome out of their minds and move forward.

“Game one wasn’t even a game,” Newtown Coach Brian Neumeyer said. “We aren’t even chalking that up as a match.”

The Nighthawks rebounded quite nicely and took a step in the right direction. They used precision passing, good spacing, patience with the ball, movement without the ball, and all-around hustle and aggressiveness to get to almost every 50-50 ball and dominate possession from start to finish in the Immaculate game.

“They were really condensed so we just kept switching it and holding it — and not making mistakes,” Barrett said.

“We were much more organized. Much better effort — what we wanted to do and what we know we can do,” the coach added.

Newtown basically played keep-away by finding open teammates and not forcing the play until the opportunity presented itself.

“That’s what we didn’t do in game one. That’s the expectation and the standard that we should be playing at. And I think we’ll keep on growing from here though. This is a good base. Like I said to the guys at halftime —‘this is not our pinnacle. We’re going to work to get there.’ But a good start,” Neumeyer said.

The Nighthawks got goals from Hank Helgren, Andre Capozziello, and Ryan Dunnigan. Helgren and Capozziello narrowly missed on other scoring chances on late-game free kicks, including Capozziello’s post-clanker. Dunnigan’s goal did come on a blast that hit the bottom of the crossbar and barely crossed the goal line.

Newtown possessed the ball so much of the game that NHS goalkeeper Ishan Tatake didn’t have all that much to do.

“I’d rather be bored than busy,” Tatake said. “It’s beautiful to watch — when we’re passing like that, but we can do a lot better, I think. The work ethic was good out there today.”

Newtown lost its next game, 2-0 at Pomperaug of Southbury on September 20. The Nighthawks will look to get back into the win column at Bethel on Saturday, September 25.