Last year’s high school swimming and diving championship season did not get wrapped up due to the impact of the coronavirus shutting down sports in early/mid March. With a new winter season set to begin, Newtown High School’s squad, which features some new faces and will have to overcome several key losses to graduation, will strive to grow.

“The ending of last year’s season was heartbreaking. I think that athletes and the coaches are looking forward to a return to some sense of normalcy of the winter season. The athletes’ attitudes have been super-positive, and you can feel the excitement of them just being around their teammates again and preparing for the season,” Nighthawk Coach Adam Fielding said.

“My overall goal for this season is to see the team grow. We have gotten a little younger and inexperienced so it will be fun to watch the team mature in that respect throughout the season. We would like to be competitive in most of our dual meets and make a little noise at SWCs,” said the coach, referring to the South-West Conference championships.

All teams, swimming and other sports included, may be a bit behind with conditioning since sports have been shut down, and it stands to reason that race times may not be so fast, at least initially. Newtown also lost some significant speed to graduation.

“We graduated some very fast seniors last year, and while we did not replace that top end speed we did fill in some depth with the new additions to the team,” Fielding said.

The NHS coach said his Nighthawks will have strong distance swims this season, as well as some key odd stroke performances.

Newtown is led by senior captains Evan Wei, John Boccuzzi III, and Colden Bobowick.

Newtown’s most challenging competition stands to come from Pomperaug of Southbury and Brookfield — always tough conference foes — and Masuk of Monroe, which has come on strong the last few seasons, Fielding noted. In the fall, the girls’ swim teams competed virtually. Each team raced in its home pool and combined results with opposing squads in an effort to cut down on numbers of people on the pool deck. The winter teams are slated to travel, however, so meets will have a traditional competitive setting.

The Nighthawks dive in on Tuesday, February 9 with a visit to New Fairfield. Pomperaug travels to NHS a week later for a February 16 meet; both will begin at 5 pm.