By Kim J. Harmon

RIDGEFIELD – The powerful offense of the Newtown High School boys’ lacrosse team (led by the three amigos – John Oliver, Casey Kirch and Tom Ryan) has operated almost on cruise control as it has pounded a host of weaker teams.

This past week, though, the Nighthawks have had to take themselves off cruise control to focus on a couple of much tougher opponents – Fairfield and Ridgefield. And what they have discovered is their gaudy statistics (182 goals in 12 games) are not inflated.

This is a good team.

Casey Kirch scored seven goals and assisted on one other and Mike Soder scored a goal and assisted on four others to lead the Nighthawks to a 12-8 win over Ridgefield on Tuesday night. Add to that an impressive 11-9 win over Fairfield on Saturday and the ‘Hawks (ranked No. 6 in Connecticut according to Laxpower.com) have pushed their record to 11-2 overall and 6-1 in the South-West Conference.

“The adjustment (between opponents) is tough,” said head coach Brian Micena, “especially in the first five minutes when you see a team that can move the ball as quickly as this one. But in the last three big games we have showed up to play.”

It did take them about nine minutes to show up on Tuesday, though. With 3:03 left in the first quarter and the Tigers already in possession of a 3-0 lead, Oliver scored the first of his three goals.

The ‘Hawks started climbing back into the game.

Ryan got the ‘Hawks to within one goal with 24 seconds left in the first and after the Tigers scored midway through the second, Kirch scored his first goal off a nice pass from Soder to bring the ‘Hawks within one again.

Then Ridgefield went on a rally of its own, scoring three unanswered goals – while winning just about every faceoff – to take a 6-3 lead. Kirch did save the ‘Hawks a little bit, though, by scoring off a restart with 23 seconds left in the half.

That goal started the ‘Hawks on a six-goal run that staked them to a 9-6 lead. It was Kirch, Oliver, Kirch, Soder and Kirch again as the ‘Hawks utterly dominated the third quarter to take control of the game.

“I tell the guys that lacrosse is a game of waves,” said coach Micena. “When it’s on them you have to stay poised and when it’s on us, you have to ride it. Our defense really stepped up in the second half.

Ridgefield cored in the first 25 seconds of the fourth quarter and six minutes later scored again to trim the Newtown lead to just one, 9-8. The tension started to build, but with 4:30 left to play Kirch started to take the air out of Ridgefield with his sixth goal of the game. Less than 90 seconds later, he scored his seventh goal to really deflate the Tigers.

Oliver finished off the scoring with 59 seconds left.

“They showed a lot of character tonight,” said coach Micena. “The guys really showed up to play. Our middies did a great job.”

The ‘Hawks will finish the regular season with games against Brookfield (at home) and Farmington (away).

The South-West Conference semi-finals (in which the ‘Hawks will be ranked second) will be held Thursday, May 29, with the finals to follow on Tuesday, June 3.