U15 Senior Gold Lacrosse Team Second At Brookfield Tournament

This past Sunday, the U15 Newtown Senior Gold Team played in the Brookfield Lacrosse Early Season Tournament. Playing against a field of eight senior-level teams, Newtown reached the championship game and finished in second place following a 3-1 defeat to New Milford.

Newtown outscored its first four opponents a combined 27-6 (including a 16-1 win over Cheshire Red in the semifinals).

 Newtown came out running hard. Tyler Hanley took control in the tournament’s opening faceoff against Brookfield and Newtown quickly scored with the powerful attack of Graham Derrickson and Parker Rodbell leading the way. That set the tone for stellar play by Dan Hebert, OJ Newtown-Tanzer and Phil Reynolds on midfield. The tight defense of Tom Bauer and Jack Kearney was too tough for Brookfield to handle and Newtown came away with a 3-1 win.

In the tourney’s second game, against New Fairfield, superior ground ball play by Alec Beauchemin, Chris Erikson, and Chase Hutchinson and strong attack play by Cody Ryan and Patrick Cappoziello led Newtown to a 5-2 win.

Newtown beat Cheshire Black, a team that has grown to be a rival with Newtown, 3-2 in the third contest of the tourney.  Newtown overcame a 2-0 deficit as Evan Isaacs kicked in with his stellar goaltending abilities and acrobatic saves. Pat Thornberg and Brian Kruger played tough defense and Stephen Walsh was all over the field. Newtown tied the score with minutes to play. James Marusi then scooped a ground ball from the defensive end and transitioned it all the way down field, double-faking the pass, and then feeding to Parker Rodbell for the game-winning goal.

Newtown moved on to play their fourth game against the Cheshire Red team and won 16-1 to advance to the championship game against New Milford.

The final game was hard-fought, but Newtown settled for the second-place trophy to conclude a long day of exciting lacrosse action.