Hard-Hitting Newtown High Sluggers Swinging Away

By Andy Hutchison

Newtown High School’s baseball team rolled to three hard-hitting wins before finally losing its fifth game of the spring on Monday. In their wins, Newtown’s offense was unstoppable as the Nighthawks pounded out 42 runs in three games to swing a brief two-game losing streak away and carry a 10-5 overall record into the middle of this week’s action.

The Nighthawks crushed Joel Barlow of Redding 16-2 at Fairfield Hills on May 5, then went on the road and out-slugged Immaculate of Danbury and Oxford on May 7 and 8, 15-4 and 11-7, respectively.

“I feel coming off the couple of losses we were hungry,” NHS Coach Matt Memoli said.

Memoli said his players’ approaches at the plate were great in the three-game stretch, during which they routinely got ahead in the count.

In the win over Barlow, Ryan Noonan had two triples and four runs scored; Kyle Kromberg had a single and double, scored three runs and drove in another; Ryan Schmidt delivered a two-run triple off the bench; Andy Lapple had two hits, three RBI, and scored twice; and John Fracker added a triple, single, RBI, and run scored.

Against Immaculate, Noonan again jumpstarted the offense at the top of the order with three singles, a triple, a walk, three runs scored, and two driven in. Kromberg belted a three-run home run; Colby Brown had two singles and scored four runs; Ryan Tita had three singles and scored three runs; and Fracker added homer.

In the win over Oxford, Brandon Rosenberger and Bryan Czel both hit homers, Czel also singled and stole three bases; and Noonan doubled, singled twice and stole a trio of bases as well.

Even in Monday’s 7-4 loss to Pomperaug, the Nighthawks had good approaches at the plate, Memoli said, but ran into tough pitching. Newtown scored two late runs but could not overcome the Panthers.

All-in-all, hitting seems to be contagious for the Nighthawks, and Memoli believes that success at the plate breeds more success because the individual hitters feel less pressure to come through with so many others in the lineup there to produce if one player fails to reach base.

“The guys have been coming together tremendously,” the coach said. “We’re getting contributions from everyone.”

Lapple, the team’s third hitter, came into this week with a team-best .619 batting average, No. 5 hitter Czel was batting .465. and leadoff man Evan Noonan is a .400 hitter with five triples to this point. The No. 2 hitter, Kromberg, is batting .326 and cleanup man George Zaruba is batting .341. Collectively, the Nighthawks carried an ultra-impressive .367 average into this week.

“It’s almost unheard of in high school baseball,” Memoli said of there being so many hitters batting above .400 and in the high .300s.

Coming into this week’s Newtown had produced 131 runs in the first 14 games. Kromberg, Czel, and Zaruba all have two of the team’s eight home runs.