NHS Girls Edged By Masuk, Win At Bunnell

By Andy Hutchison

It wasn’t an unbeaten week, but all-in-all it was a good week for the Newtown High School girls’ basketball team.

The Nighthawks pushed a 9-2 Masuk team just about to wire before falling 56-50 at home on January 23. Despite the loss, given the caliber of the opponent, NHS Coach Shawn O’Brien was pleased with — and thought his team could build off — the effort.

“I thought we could build off a loss like that. Masuk’s an outstanding team,” O’Brien said.

In the Hawks’ next game, they did just that, playing hard and executing in a 54-38 win at Bunnell this past Tuesday night.

The Nighthawks shot a collective 15-of-19 from the free throw line and had three scorers in double figures to improve to 9-4 (6-2 in the South-West Conference). Bunnell fell to 5-8 overall.

Newtown had a 15-5 scoring advantage from the free throw line in this game. “That’s one of the teams we preach is outscoring teams from the foul line,” O’Brien said.

Sara Kelley, whom O’Brien believes is one of the best foul shooters in the SWC, Jordyn Good and Riley Wurtz combined to hit 11-of-12 foul shots. The trio combined to score 38 points and Kate Bowen added 6.

The Hawks will visit 6-7 Immaculate on Friday, January 30. O’Brien expects this to be a tough test for his team. The way things are going in the SWC this year, no game looks easy. As the Newtown coach pointed out, he was pleased to come away with a win against an at-the-time 3-5 Weston team that he believed was much better than the record indicated. Well, on Tuesday, Weston beat now 10-3 Masuk (which by the way, was handed one of those three defeats by Immaculate).

Things don’t stand to get any easier any time soon. The Hawks visit New Milford (which beat Immaculate by a point on Tuesday) on February 3 and return home on February 7 to entertain Lauralton Hall, which knocked off Newtown on opening night.