Newtown Softball Team Rolls Into Postseason

By Andy Hutchison

A string of early-season blowouts set the tone for what has been an overall dominant game-to-game performance by the Newtown High School softball team in 2010.

Newtown entered the final two games of the regular campaign with an 18-0 overall record. A tough test with also unbeaten Lauralton Hall of Milford on Wednesday (after The Bee sports section went to press) followed by the season-finale with Masuk on Thursday were all that separated the Nighthawks from an unbeaten campaign as they geared up for the postseason.

Regardless of the final record and just how sparking it ended up, the Hawks have their eyes set on the prize: A South-West Conference Tournament Championship.

Newtown will host a quarterfinal round game on Tuesday, May 25, at 3:30 pm. With a win, the Hawks will bus to Stratford’s DeLuca Field for the semifinals on May 27 and potentially head back to DeLuca for the title game on May 28 (7 pm).

Newtown surged into the final week of the campaign with a pair of shutout victories — 6-0 at Bunnell of Stratford on May 13 and 7-0 at New Fairfield on May 15. Two days later, old nemesis Masuk of Monroe visited Treadwell Park and Newtown erupted for eight first-inning runs in an 11-1 triumph highlighted by Kate Bowen’s 100th career hit — not bad for a player who sat out her junior year with a knee injury — and Rachael Ruiz’s first varsity home run.

In the win over Bunnell, Bowen tossed a one-hitter with 11 strikeouts. Her battery mate, catcher Ashley Kuligowski, was 3-for-4 with a pair of runs batted in. Megan Gibbons also delivered a 3-for-4, two-RBI performance. Mady Hauck added two hits and Bowen helped her own cause with a double.

Against New Fairfield, it was more of the same. Bowen struck out six in another one-hit performance. Bowen belted a home run in the first and the game remained a 1-0 nail-biter until Newtown broke it open with three in the sixth and three more in the seventh.

Gibbons was 3-for-3 with a double and run batted in, Bowen also doubled and knocked in another run, and Natalie Dunn had a double. Colleen Cunningham, Monica Macchiarulo, and Jessica Gibbons all delivered RBIs.

In the Masuk game, Bowen tossed a two-hitter. Jessica Gibbons had an RBI single, Ruiz delivered a two-run single, Nicki Elias had an RBI single, Ally Modzelewski knocked in a run with a hit, and Kuligowski added a two-run double as the Hawks seized control from the get-go. Bowen added her sixth home run of the year, Ruiz belted the first of her career, and Bowen added her century-mark hit with a clean, hard single in the fifth.

Through the New Fairfield game this past weekend, Bowen carried a .30 earned run average and a .418 batting average to go along with a team-best 25 runs batted in.

Megan Gibbons had a .431 batting average, and Hauck was hitting .464 in 28 at bats.