Newtown Softball Team Falls In Semis

By Andy Hutchison

Newtown High School’s softball team advanced to the South-West Conference Tournament semifinals by defeating New Fairfield in the quarterfinal round.

The third-seeded Nighthawks’ hopes of battling for a conference championship ended in a 4-0 defeat to second-seeded Lauralton Hall at DeLuca Field in Stratford on Tuesday.

Newtown only mustered a pair of hits off the bats of Nora Lynn Shimko and Ally Modzelewski against Hall pitcher Bridget Gates.

“She’s really good,” Newtown senior captain Christine Beck said of Gates. “It’s nice to go up against her and try our best. Unfortunately we couldn’t do it today.”

Gates won a battle with Newtown’s Jenna Legros. The Newtown pitcher allowed only five hits and struck out seven batters, but Hall, aided by three Newtown errors, advanced to face No. 1 Masuk in the championship.

In the quarterfinals, Newtown nipped sixth-seeded New Fairfield 2-1 at home on May 22. In the first inning, Shimko hit a sacrifice fly to score Rachel Ruiz, who had reached base on an error. Newtown scored what would turn out to be the difference-making run in the second when Natalie Dunn doubled to left-center and scored on Beck’s hard single. Legros allowed four hits and struck out 13 en route to the win.

The Nighthawks (15-6) will now wait for the state tournament bracket to be announced.

“We should get pretty far in states,” Beck said. “We just have to try our hardest.”