Hawks Come Back, Press Out Dramatic Win At Barlow

By Andy Hutchison

REDDING — Trailing by 11 points with five minutes to play, Newtown High School’s boys’ basketball team dug in its proverbial heels, forced five turnovers, and came back to shock Joel Barlow 64-61 on the road on January 9.

The Nighthawks applied a full-court press in the mid-to-late stages of the fourth quarter to make the comeback possible. It could be said that Newtown stole this victory away from the Falcons, who dropped to 4-3 overall. NHS came up with three steals, forced the Falcons into a five-second violation during an inbound attempt, and used a double team effort to cause a Falcon player to lose the ball out of bounds.

“It was a complete team effort. I was very proud of the kids,” NHS Coach John Quinn said.

The Hawks, battling early-season growing pains with a completely new starting lineup following the graduation of all of their starters from a year ago, had a 2-4 record coming into the game. The Nighthawks were looking to get on the winning track.

“This is the game we wanted to turn our season around. We wanted to go on a little run,” senior captain Connor Collier said. “It’s a perfect way to start it.”

The Nighthawks won consecutive games for the first time this season with a 27-21 victory at Bethel on Tuesday to get back to the .500 mark.

“In all my years there’s never been a game like that,” Quinn, who started coaching the Hawks in the middle-1990s, said of the low-scoring affair at Bethel.

The final totals were a reflection of Bethel’s deliberate style of play, Newtown’s shooting struggles, and the Hawks’ solid defense. “Our defense really was outstanding,” Quinn said.

His son, and captain, Dan Quinn, had 7 points and fellow senior captain Collier added 6.

Newtown will aim to make it three straight when it hosts Weston (one of the schools it beat earlier in the season) on Friday, January 16.

Is the wild win at Barlow a turning point for this team? “It may be,” Coach Quinn said. “We needed a win. A loss would have been very bad.”

It was looking like a loss for the better part of the night, but Newtown’s swarming defense, led by Collier, fellow senior captain Kurt Nacewicz, and junior Dan Lynch, was too much for the Falcons.

It took a few attempts for Newtown to chip away at the deficit. Leading 49-43, Barlow broke through the press for back-to-back “touchdown plays” on long passes leading to easy lay-ups and it was a 10-point lead. Down 56-45, Newtown went on to outscore its counterparts 19-5 in the final handful of minutes. Junior Kyle Kromberg’s lay-up off an inbounds pass following the five-second violation got Newtown within 58-55.

The Falcons answered to push the lead back to five with 2:27 to play but a Nacewicz free throw made it 60-56. Collier, up against the end line, stole the ensuing inbound pass and cashed in with an easy bucket. Suddenly it was a two-point game, 60-58, with just under two minutes to play.

The Falcons couldn’t pad the lead at the free throw line and Nacewicz earned a trip the charity stripe and sank both shots to knot the score at 60 apiece with 1:02 remaining. Barlow turned the ball over by losing the ball out of bounds during Newtown’s double team effort. That led to a fast-break, go-ahead basket by Collier, set up by junior Casey Tenney, with 45 ticks left on the scoreboard clock.

Barlow got to within 62-61 when Corey Stevens hit one of two free throws with 32.6 seconds remaining. Now it was the Falcons who had to apply a full-court press. NHS broke through and Collier’s lay-in made it 64-61 with just 16.1 seconds left. Stevens’ would-be game-tying shot clanked off the rim and Newtown celebrated easily its most rewarding win of the season.

Collier led Newtown’s balanced offense with 14 points, Nacewicz and sophomore Josh Engler each dropped in 13, Kromberg had 12, and Quinn added 9. Quinn hit three 3-pointers, Kromberg drained a pair, and Engler sank another from behind the arc as Newtown overcame a 20-point effort by Barlow’s Drew Zembruski.

The Nighthawks outscored Barlow 26-16 in the fourth quarter, matching its point total from the entire first half.

The Hawks trailed 28-26 at halftime but the players and coaches were confident they would prevail.

“I feel like Coach Quinn fired us up at halftime,” Nacewicz said.

“I looked each one in the eyes and said, ‘Is there anyone who doesn’t believe we’re going to win this one because I do,’” the coach said of his interaction with the players at the break.

“The whole game, we knew we were going to win. It was just a matter of us playing together like we’re capable of playing,” Nacewicz said. “The second half was just a glimpse of how the rest of the season is going to be.”