Newtown High School’s boys’ basketball team lost a 46-45 overtime heart-breaker at Stratford High, during Stratford’s Senior Night, in the regular-season finale on February 24.

The end result is that the Nighthawks, 13-7 overall, finish as one of four teams with 8-5 records in South-West Conference play and, as a result of head-to-head matchups and tiebreakers, are the No. 6 seed and will visit third-seeded Joel Barlow of Redding in the SWC tournament quarterfinals. The teams will meet at 7 pm on Friday, February 27. Newtown defeated visiting Barlow 69-61 in early February.

The Nighthawks did everything but win in their visit to Stratford. The loss cost the Nighthawks the third seed and pushed Stratford, which improved to 8-5, into the fifth seeded in the bracket.

“This is the one we really needed,” Newtown Coach Tim Tallcouch said. “The kids came out and we executed the game plan.”

Which included forcing Stratford to take shots from the outside and getting to rebounds of missed shots. For the better part of the game it worked.

Newtown held the Red Devils to 15 first-half points and just 21 points nearly three minutes into the fourth quarter. But Stratford overcame a 14-point final-period deficit, finished regulation on a 17-3 run, and scored the first six points of OT before fending off a comeback effort by the Hawks.

“They made shots that they weren’t making early — specifically 3-pointers,” Tallcouch said.

The Red Devils made five of their six 3-pointers in the final quarter, and Sam Breiner hit four those shots from downtown.

The end of regulation and overtime presented a thrilling, all-the-while chaotic, display of intense action with players from both teams hitting the floor left and right as they dove for loose balls or endured contact near the rim.

Stratford seized a 40-39 lead in the final minute of regulation and Jeremy Doski intercepted a pass near midcourt, drove to the rim where he was fouled, and sank one free throw with 17 seconds remaining, forcing overtime.

Newtown didn’t score until there were 33 seconds left in the four-minute overtime, when Dylan Palumbo’s put-back made it 46-42. Doski again intercepted a pass near half court, leading to Jacob Burden’s 3-pointer from the elbow with ten seconds left. Newtown had a chance to win it after the Red Devils missed a pair of free throws, but Palumbo’s last-second shot missed.

Burden finished with 14 points, Harry Depuy scored 12, and Doski had eight. Depuy pulled down a dozen rebounds, Charlie Huegi had six rebounds, and Doski had four. Depuy and Doski both blocked a trio of shots.

“It was a great game — a great high school basketball game,” Tallcouch acknowledged. “They came out to play, played hard, played with a purpose — just came up a point short.”

This is an especially tough game for the Nighthawks to swallow, but Tallcouch remained optimistic about his postseason prospects.

“What we’ve got to do now is forget about this, come back to practice the next two days, and go after it,” the coach said. “Tonight we proved we can beat anybody. We’ve just got to go out and finish the game.”