Newtown High School's boys' lacrosse team was defeated by visiting Mamaroneck of New York 13-8, at Blue & Gold Stadium, on Saturday, April 7. The loss came to a challenging nonconference team between lopsided wins over South-West Conference teams. Newtown defeated visiting Notre Dame Fairfield 22-1 two days earlier and beat host Bethel 17-2 two days later to start the season 3-1.

It was a hard-fought battle between both teams, but Mamaroneck controlled the game early on and never trailed. Tucker Garrity tied the score at 1-1. Garrity's goal was Newtown's loan goal in the first quarter, as Mamaroneck led 4-1.

Looking to tighten the scoring gap in the second quarter, Newtown worked the ball around, leading to an Evan Eggleston goal and an Aiden Coleman goal assisted by Layton Harrell, making the score 4-3.

Almost immediately, Mamaroneck scored another goal, which was negated by a Brandon Manka goal on a Garrity assist, making it 5-4. The next two goals were scored by Mamaroneck. At the eight minute mark, Newtown received a 30-second pushing penalty that led to one of Mamaroneck's goals. Seconds later, Coleman had a nice ground ball pickup that led to an unassisted goal. With a little over six minutes left, both teams were handed one-minute penalties, and Mamaroneck scored two more goals to close out the half leading 9-5.

Jeff Garrity scored a goal assisted by his brother, Tucker, midway through the third. The lone goal of the quarter made it 9-6 heading into the final 15 minutes of play.

In the fourth quarter, Mamaroneck came out blazing, scoring another trio of goals in the first nine minutes to go out to a six-goal lead. With time winding down, Jeff Garrity scored his second goal at the three minute mark. A Declan Sughrue goal 30 seconds later cut Mamaroneck's lead to four with two and a half minutes left in the game, but the Nighthawks didn't get any closer.

Newtown finished the game with 22 ground balls, 24 shots on the offensive end, and ten saves from goaltender Jake Dandrea, yet that was not enough to defeat the tough New York opponent.

"We have a 50-50 experience level. Some have a lot of experience on varsity and some don't. With less experience comes nerves and mistakes. We had to start playing better as a team," Newtown Coach Scott Bulkley said.

The Nighthawks will host two more New York teams, including Stepinac on Saturday, April 14, beginning at 2:30 pm.

Looking to future games, NHS boys lacrosse will continue to put in work as it tries reclaim the South-West Conference throne; Newtown won the conference title two years ago and uses these out-of-state games as postseason tuneups.

"We're going to keep working hard and work on things we did well and fix what we didn't," Bulkley said.

The Nighthawks defeated Notre Dame-Fairfield 22-1, on April 5. Newtown jumped out to a 15-0 lead after one quarter of play before coasting to win.

Tucker Garrity had three goals and eight assists, Harrell logged six goals and three assists, Eggleston had a goal and five assists, Manka scored three goals, Coleman, Sughrue, and Kyle Sullivan all had two, and Jeff Garrity, Riley McCafferty, and Pat Grover all scored one.

In the 17-2 win over Bethel, Harrell scored five times and added two assists, Jeffrey Garrity had three goals and an assist, Eggleston scored three times and added an assist, Tucker Garrity scored a goal and added four assists, Coleman had four goals and one assist, Sughrue scored a goal and assisted on two, Manka and Alek Budd both had assists. Dandrea recorded six saves.