By Steve Bigham

The Newtown High School boys’ soccer team is on the verge of doing what few NHS teams in any sport have ever done – complete an undefeated regular season.

At 14-0, the Nighthawks are off to the best start in school history and they will head into Saturday’s eight-team South-West Conference playoffs as the top seed. A win over a strong Brookfield squad at Treadwell Park on Thursday (after press time) would assure the perfect regular season.

Newtown’s most recent wins came against Pomperaug, New Milford and Bunnell.

From here on out, however, Newtown knows it can not afford to lose. Any loss now – whether in the SWCs or states - will be far costlier than any regular season loss. Newtown does not want to be the Seattle Mariners of the SWC.

“Our coach told us if we wanted to lose it should have been a long time ago,” explained senior goalie Matt Pachniuk. “It’s simply out of the question now.”

“If we drop a game now, we lose the season pretty much. I mean big deal, we’re 15-0 during the regular season, but it doesn’t matter if we don’t win in the postseason,” added senior midfielder Ian Walker.

Newtown moved up from 8th to 7th in last week’s Hartford Courant poll and the Newtown players and coaches say their ranking should move up into the top five this week. Newtown has now outscored its opponents 71-3 and is considered by many to be one of the state’s top teams.

“We just want to run the table, that’s all,” noted senior sweeper Colin Armstrong, who is having an all-state season like his predecessors at the position Bret McEvoy and Andrew Smith. Armstrong is hard to miss on the field. He wears a headband around is shaved head and a massive knee brace on his leg. He has played extremely well coming off an ACL injury a year ago.

Pachiuk was all state a year ago and appears headed there again.

“Going in, I just had a feeling it was going to be our year and I think it’s going to be tough to beat us,” Pachniuk said.

On Tuesday, Newtown dismantled Bunnell at home, 8-0, as sophomore Sean Rawson – coming off a concussion – scored a hat trick. Ryan Tracy and Ryan Koegler each added a pair of goals and Marcus Tracy chipped in with one.

Last Saturday, Newtown took care of a solid New Milford team, 2-0, on the road as Ryan Tracy and Nick Mentasana both scored for Newtown.

Pomperaug gave Newtown one of its toughest battles of the year October 18 before finally succumbing, 2-1. Freshman Marcus Tracy scored the game-winner off a header midway through the second half to ice it. Jake Rouse served the ball perfectly to Tracy’s head off a corner kick. Mike Troy opened the scoring in the first half on a pass from Ryan Tracy just before the halftime whistle. Pachniuk made several key saves in the first half to help keep Newtown in it.

Troy, who now has 31 goals, has been sidelined this week with a mild ankle sprain. He is expected to return to the lineup later this week.

Pomperaug is expected to be the eighth seed in next week’s playoffs and would likely face Newtown in the first round Saturday night in Newtown.

Semi-finals are scheduled for Tuesday while the finals are slated for Friday, November 2, in Stratford.