Playoff Clincher: Newtown Boys’ Basketball Team Topples Oxford, Advances To States

By Andy Hutchison

A season of ups and downs on and off the Nighthawks’ basketball court was extended by Newtown High School’s boys’ team. The Nighthawks clinched a berth in the Class LL State Tournament by earning their eighth win of the season in convincing fashion — 67-33 over one-win Oxford at home on February 20.

The Nighthawks had 12 different players on the score sheet in a game that was all but decided in the first quarter. Newtown, behind Kyle Kromberg’s 8 points, opened a 21-4 advantage after eight minutes of play and never looked back.

“It’s a good feeling knowing that we’re safe, now going to states,” said junior George Zaruba, who contributed 4 points and a presence under the basket with offensive and defensive rebounds in the win.

Newtown improved to 8-10 overall heading into the final two regular season home games. NHS lost to Pomperaug 79-67 on Monday and ended the season against New Fairfield on Wednesday (after The Bee sports section went to press) in final tune-ups for the postseason.

It’s been a rollercoaster ride for the team beginning with the complete rebuild of a team that graduated all of its starters from a year ago and continuing with a midseason suspension of some of the starters. Clinching a playoff berth is rewarding for the seniors who realize this is their last chance to play high school basketball. The new-to-varsity underclassmen, meanwhile, have to be excited about the playoff opportunity.

“It’s a range of emotions,” Newtown Coach John Quinn said. “For seniors it’s their last opportunity and I think with seniors you see that — they absolutely realize it. Then you have some young kids — first time, so they don’t realize how special it is.”

After all, those underclassmen have a year or two of high school ball ahead of themselves.

For now, the Hawks have at least one postseason game ahead of themselves. They hope to make it more. So what will it take for Newtown to have success in the state playoffs? “I think we need to do what we did tonight,” junior Dan Lynch, who led the Hawks with 15 points in the win over Oxford, said after the game.

Newtown used a fast-break offense to run away with the win. Lynch added that Newtown is best served when it uses a frenetic offense to utilize its speed and compensate for its overall lack of size. Against Oxford, seniors Kurt Nacewicz and Dan Quinn and junior Peter Manos each scored 7 points and sophomore Josh Engler added 6.