Softball Team Extends Winning Streak To 11, Finally Falls In Extra-Inning Battle

By Andy Hutchison

Newtown High School’s softball team had reeled off 11 straight wins after an 0-3 start to the season. There would be no more beating the defending conference champion Nighthawks — or so it seemed. It took a bang-bang play at home plate and extra innings for Stratford’s Bunnell High School to finally end Newtown’s unbeatable ways in a 4-1 eight-inning nail-biter under the lights at Treadwell Park on May 9.

Newtown’s Colleen Cunningham got the start in the pitcher’s circle and matched Bunnell hurler Kayla Pataki in hanging zeros on the score sheets for the first five innings. The visiting Bulldogs finally broke the ice with back-to-back two-out hits in the top of the sixth inning and the Nighthawks, down to their final three outs, tied the game.

Jess Gibbons started the bottom of the seventh with a booming triple to dead center field and beat the throw home on a grounder by Natalie Dunn who did a nice job of putting the ball on the ground to drive in the run despite a two-strike count. After Cunningham stroked a one-out single to center, Courtney Escoda pinch ran for Dunn and nearly slid home with the winning run when a grounder by Danielle Shine went through the legs of a Bunnell infielder. The throw to the plate narrowly beat Escoda, who was called out for the second out of the frame and Newtown couldn’t push across the winning run.

In the eighth, Kelsey Palumbery delivered a two-run triple for a 3-1 Bunnell lead, and Kelly Scofield’s infield single drove home another run.

Pataki struck out ten batters and scattered four hits, and Cunningham fanned four and allowed seven hits. Newtown fell to 11-4 overall and suffered its first South-West Conference loss in 11 SWC games this spring.

“I said to the girls at the postgame meeting that hopefully we can learn from this. You’re never as good as you think you are and somebody’s always waiting in the wings to knock you off,” Newtown Coach Bob Guererra said.

The Nighthawks had beaten Pomperaug 6-5 in Southbury on May 7 and doubled up New Fairfield 8-4, at home, on May 6.

In the Pomperaug game, Newtown scored twice in each the first, second, and fifth innings to build a 6-3 lead. In the first inning, Monica Macchiarulo, Kayla O’Grady, and Gibbons all singled, and Dunn belted a two-run double. After Morgan Macchiarulo and Shine singles, Monica Macchiarulo delivered a two-run triple in the second inning. Megan Gibbons added a two-run triple to account for the rest of Newtown’s scoring.

The Nighthawks had 13 hits, three by Megan Gibbons and two each by Monica Macchiarulo, Jess Gibbons, and Shine. The game ended when Jess Gibbons, the catcher, threw to her sister, Megan Gibbons at third base, to catch a runner attempting to steal.

In Newtown’s win over New Fairfield the day before, Megan Gibbons had three hits and five runs batted in, including a three-run triple and a home run. Jess Gibbons, Dunn, and Cunningham also knocked in runs. Newtown built a 6-0 lead with three runs in each the third and fourth innings, and never looked back.