Girls’ Lacrosse Shooting For Another Crown—

Hawks Go For Seventh Straight SWC Title

By Andy Hutchison

Every year, for the past five, Newtown High School’s girls’ lacrosse team has been the team to beat. The Nighthawks have won six straight conference championships and take the field with the familiar bulls-eye-on-the-backs status as the team to dethrone yet again this spring.

“Every year it’s a little bit of pressure. Every team wants to beat us. Every team wants to beat Newtown,” NHS Coach Maura Fletcher points out.

Good news for their SWC foes: Newtown lost seven players, including six starters — three of whom were defenders — to graduation, leaving significant voids in the lineup. Bad news for the competition: Fletcher is confident in her team and her goal is, once again, to win the win the SWC.

“I have players that really have stepped up. I’m just as confident about my team this year as I was last year,” Fletcher said.

The Hawks are led by captains Kaitlin Brophy, a midfielder; Kelly O’Connor, a defender; and Meaghan Carney and Katie Canavan, both attack players.

Other returning players whom Fletcher expects big things from are senior midfielder Emma Kingsley, senior attack player Erin Brown, sophomore midfielder/defender Tressa Scott, and sophomore midfielder Erin Kenning.

Offense remains a strength and Fletcher doesn’t anticipate any problems with the team scoring goals. The team’s defense is young overall. O’Connor and junior Kaitlin Vos Winkel return with experience, but the rest of the defense is untested at the varsity level. They’ll be backed up by junior and second-year goaltender Celeste Cheung.

It will be a different type of campaign for the coach, now that her daughter, Annie Fletcher, has graduated. She’s among those who leave holes on the back line, but Fletcher has been impressed with how the players are coming along in the early going. The coach got a good indication of how competitive the team can be in preseason scrimmages against Cheshire, and some tough New York State schools.

Every year, Newtown dominates its conference rivals, including two of the better teams, Brookfield and New Fairfield, so Fletcher scheduled what she anticipates will be tough nonconference games with New Canaan and Glastonbury, in addition to in-season scrimmages against strong opponents from New York and Long Island. The coach is hopeful that these clashes will help prepare the girls for the playoffs. Newtown’s only regular-season loss last spring was to FCIAC foe Wilton, and the Hawks edged Glastonbury 14-12 in a rare close game.

While Newtown has thoroughly dominated the SWC in recent years, the team has had troubles in state tournament play under the old divisional format. Fletcher likes her team’s chances at a state title this year, in part because of the new setup. Now, instead of two divisional tournaments, there will be three class tourneys, meaning the top teams are spread out and the brackets should become that much weaker.

Newtown will compete in Class L, and no longer has to worry about former Division I powerhouses, including Darien and New Canaan, both in Class M. Not that it will be a cakewalk by any means. Class L also includes defending D-I runner-up Greenwich, along with last year’s D-II champ Fairfield Ludlowe and finalist Staples of Westport, not to mention always-tough Glastonbury. Fletcher considers the new setup to have pluses and minuses; it means one more state champ but also dilutes the titles slightly, she points out.

The Nighthawks were scheduled to begin the season at Brookfield on Wednesday (after The Bee sports section went to press) and will visit Stratford on April 11. After a third straight road game, April 14 at New Milford, Newtown will have its home opener, April 18 when Lauralton Hall of Milford visits Treadwell Park for a 4 pm game. Newtown hosts New Canaan April 19 at Blue & Gold Stadium at noon.

“I’m looking forward to a great year,” Fletcher said.