Boys’ Lacrosse Team Wins First Seven, Then Falls

By Andy Hutchison

Monday’s 15-10 defeat to New Milford aside, this has been a season of nothing but success for the Newtown High School boys’ lacrosse team. The Nighthawks started the year 7-0, outscoring teams a cumulative 104-24.

The winning ways, which include Newtown’s share of convincing triumphs and a couple of competitive games including a two-goal win at Weston, have given the team members good feelings about their chances of making some noise in the postseason once again (Newtown reached the conference championship game last year).

“I think we can go pretty far. Our defense is stepping up and competing really well,” John Grimaldi said after the Nighthawks blanked Stratford 17-0 at Treadwell Park on April 23.

After splitting time in goal with then-senior Max Beitel a year ago, Clarence Chung has taken on regular goaltending duties.

“It’s going pretty well. I feel pretty comfortable in the cage,” Chung said. “The defense is doing a good job keeping the other players outside of the perimeter.”

That defensive effort has resulted in shots coming from outside, giving Chung a good chance to make saves. He stopped nine of 11 shots in this past Saturday’s 13-3 rout of New York opponent St John The Baptist.

Newtown is 2-for-2 in contests against out-of-state foes. The Nighthawks still have a May 16 game at Eastchester, N.Y., to look forward to.

“It’s a great schedule we have this year,” Jaime Vavrek said. “It’s an exciting year for all of us.”

That includes the up-and-coming players who have been able to step in and contribute and get some playing time. In the Stratford game, everyone (nearly 40 players) dressed for the game got a chance to play.

“Everybody got some time. They did a good job,” Coach Brian Micena said.

“We’re getting experience for our young guys in games like this,” Vavrek added.

Newtown is getting goal-scoring from a variety of sources led by Kevin Canavan, Christian Beitel and Vavrek, all of whom netted multiple tallies in the win over St John on Saturday. Beitel scored three times and Canavan and Vavrek both scored twice. Lewis Thompson and Jacob Dauz both had a goal and two assists and Newtown received goal-scoring contributions from Colby Summerlin, Brian Reszoly, Ralph Sergiovani and Ryan Korth. Kyle O’Connor and Dauz both gobbled up 11 of Newtown’s 84 ground balls.

In the win over Stratford, Tim Dalton, Canavan and Beitel all scored hat-tricks, Thompson had a goal and two assists and Michael Mouchantat scored twice.

Newtown visited Masuk on Thursday (after The Bee went to press) and will not take the field again for game action until a May 7 game at Bethel. The Hawks still have some tough games on the schedule, including back-to-back home tilts with New Fairfield, the team that beat them in last year’s South-West Conference championship and defending state champion Fairfield Prep (May 13 and 14, respectively).