Newtown High School’s girls’ lacrosse team earned its first win of the season by shaking off a tough start to erase a slim deficit, reel off seven unanswered goals, and defeat host Trumbull 14-8 on April 11. Julia Shugrue and Brianna Sclafani both scored four times, and Alex Futterman added two goals and two assists in the win, which came one night after a hard-fought 11-10 overtime loss in the season opener at Brookfield.

Against Trumbull, a nonconference opponent from the FCIAC, the Nighthawks trailed 6-5 early on before holding the host Eagles scoreless for much of the opening half and the first 18-plus minutes of the second half to build a 12-6 lead before the teams traded goals in the final minutes.

Despite the end result, Newtown Coach Amanda Mastera came away from the game believing her team’s play leaves a lot of room for improvement — particularly in midfield transition play.

The Nighthawks weren’t aggressive enough early on against the Eagles, the coach believed, so she challenged her squad to score seven goals in six minutes. “I wanted them to bring the energy level up,” Mastera said. “They almost did it.”

Newtown got the last four goals of the first half, and scored twice less than two minutes into the second half to put the game seemingly out of reach.

Double-team defensive work and overall pressure on the ball, Mastera said, was a difference-maker in Newtown holding the Eagles scoreless for such an extended period of time. Brittany Meisenheimer and Eliza Eggleston were strong defensively, and goaltender Izzy Hodge made ten saves after making nine stops the night before. Draw control was also a big factor in the win; Mastera estimated that her squad got possession off about 70 percent of the draws, led by the efforts of Eggleston and Futterman. Julia Wiberg, Nevan Gattey, Meghan Doyle, and Kat Jennings all scored goals for Newtown.

The fact that it took the Hawks some time to settle in and take over control of the game against Trumbull may be attributed to a bit of a letdown from what transpired the night before, Mastera believes.

Newtown trailed 9-5 with about six minutes to play but netted five of the last six goals to battle back and force overtime before the Bobcats prevailed.

Against Brookfield, Meisenheimer was solid defensively, Mastera said; Shugrue had three goals and played well at midfield and on the draw; Sclafani had two clutch goals; Gattey scored twice and contributed in the draw circle; Charli Condon, Jennings, and Wiberg all added net-finders.

“It was a really intense game,” said Mastera, who was pleased with the comeback effort. “To see that my team is capable of something like that is awesome.”

After all, while that was a rematch of last year’s South-West Conference championship clash, which Newtown won for its tenth straight title, this year’s version of the Nighthawks is considerably different than last year’s team, which graduated a dozen players. The Hawks have only five seniors on the roster this campaign.

“I have a young team. We have a lot of learning to do,” said Mastera, who is confident in her lineup. “It’s definitely going to be a good year.”