By Steve Bigham

MONROE – For the second-straight season, the Newtown Middle School girls’ basketball team had its hopes for an undefeated season squashed at the Jockey Hollow Tournament in Monroe.

The Lady Lions – with 14 wins and no losses going in – lost to Monroe 38-34 in the championship game last Friday night for its only loss of the season. Newtown lost in similar fashion last year to Shelton.

Coach Bill Girard’s squad had already beaten Monroe twice during the regular season and appeared to have control of the game. However, a poor-shooting performance in the fourth quarter dealt the Lions their only loss.

“We had a bad fourth quarter. We missed some easy scoring chances and scored only three points in fourth quarter,” said Girard, struggling to figure out what went wrong. “We had them for the majority of the game until the final quarter.”

Kelley Haines scored 13 points to lead Newtown, while Julie Iwanicki and Tori Filler each added seven. Filler led Newtown with 10 rebounds, while Stephanie Logan added nine.

Haines and Filler were named to the Jockey Hollow all-tournament team.

Ironically, Newtown closed out a perfect regular season February 16 with a 52-40 win over Jockey Hollow of Monroe. Eight different players broke into the scoring column, led by Haines’ 17 points, Iwanicki’s 13 and Logan’s nine. Logan also pulled down 17 rebounds. Kate Fenton and Filler each had nine boards and Haines added eight.

Kerri Frawley led Newtown with six assists while Iwanicki and Logan each added five steals.

Earlier this month, an undermanned Lions club fought back from an early deficit to beat Bethel, 49-34. Iwanicki, Haines and Logan all scored in double figures for the winners, while Fenton and Ashley LaRoque each tossed in six.

Logan, Iwanicki and Haines controlled the boards with 18, 10 and nine rebounds, respectively.

In a 49-28 win over Brookfield earlier in the season, Iwanicki canned 23 points and Haines added 16 to power the offense.

Haines, Iwanicki, Erin Murdoch, Ciatlyn Murphy,_Sarah Whalley and Fenton handled the work off the boards. Frawley and Stacey Gordon played solid on defense while Jesse Kearns and Jenn Omasta saw their first action.