Beitel Does The Trick (Twice) As NHS Skaters Finish Difficult Season With Consecutive Wins

By Andy Hutchison

After having come into the campaign with the goals of qualifying for the state and conference playoffs, members of the Newtown High School hockey team were disappointed with the way things unfolded. The Nighthawk player families paid for more practice ice time and the players and coaches committed to improving and winning.

A bounce here or there and things may have been different, but three two-goal losses and three one-goal defeats came back to haunt the Hawks who skated to a 6-14 overall record, missing out on the playoffs.

“We had high expectations. We lost a lot of close games that could have gone either way. It came down to the execution of the small components of the game. We made a lot of inexperience-mistakes that turned the tide on certain games,” NHS Head Coach Paul Esposito said.

The Nighthawks put an end to an eight-game losing streak with a 6-0 win over the winless Norwalk-Brien McMahon co-op team in Darien this past Saturday. Newtown concluded its season against the Shepaug-Litchfield-Wamogo team in Danbury on Tuesday and avenged a 3-1 defeat from when the team’s met earlier this season. NHS skated away with a 7-2 win to put a positive end to a somewhat frustrating season.

In the win on Saturday, senior captain Christian Beitel, who has maintained a hot scoring hand throughout the campaign, lit the lamp three times.

Beitel followed that performance with his second hat-trick in as many games, netting three more in the win Tuesday. Freshmen Dave Landau, Josh Branch Flower and Alex Kelly (who scored his first) and sophomore Hunter Dolyak all found the net in the season finale. Dolyak was a key playmaker too as he added four assists.

Newtown’s high-scoring ways carried over from Saturday’s win over the Norwalk-McMahon team, as seniors Robert Brautigam and Mike Poeltl and junior Sean Kennedy found the back of the net. Senior Tucker Grose set up Poeltl on a perfectly-executed two-on-one rush in the third period and Poeltl notched his first high school goal.

“It’s nice to score and get a win,” said Poeltl, emphasizing that the important thing was that the team got the victory.

Wins have been hard to come by, whether the games have been close or not. Esposito said the coaching staff, prior to the game, gave the players a handwritten test on the team’s on-ice systems and drilled the players in the two practices leading up to Saturday’s game. It seemed to pay off, as the Nighthawks were in position and moved the puck well throughout this game. The Nighthawks jumped out to a 3-0 lead through one period of play and never looked back. Junior goaltender Dylan Deselin came up with the shutout behind (literally and figuratively) his team’s strong defense.

“It’s nice to be on the other side. I think once the kids started feeling they were putting the puck in the net they really loosened up and stopped gripping the sticks so tight,” Esposito said.

The coach added that the team did a nice job of setting the tone early in each of the last two games and hopes this success carries over into next year.

Beitel said the young players possess lots of skill and have learned that they need to work hard to win. He was happy to finish the season (and his high school career) on a high note, particularly after the team struggled for the last month.

“It’s nice — it’s a glimmer of hope at the end of a dark tunnel,” Beitel said.