A couple of ties, followed by a tough-to-swallow loss to begin the season, left Coach Marc Kenney talking to his Newtown High School girls’ soccer team members, perhaps for the longest of the postgame evaluations that will take place this fall. Kenney hopes so, as he seeks consistency and quick development from his new-look squad this campaign.

Newtown had just dropped a 3-2 decision to Bethel at Treadwell Park on September 16. The Nighthawks showed fight. They erased a 2-0 deficit to tie the score, but that comeback effort was of little consolation for Kenney, who believes his team flat-out got outworked in this contest. Newtown fell to 0-1-2, and Bethel won its season opener.

“We just didn’t play hard. For whatever reason, we just didn’t play hard,” said Kenney, noting that he has seen good signs from his team early on this season. The coach says he likes that his players are committed to what the team tries to do tactically — switching fields, playing balls out to the flanks, and, perhaps most importantly, playing together.

Not concerned so much about the outcomes, Kenney is mostly focused on the effort his team puts forth. “My main issue is — how are we playing? Are we working together? Are we playing hard?” he said.

After the loss to Bethel, a game in which the decisive net-finder came on a Bethel corner kick that bounced into the goal off a Newtown player, Kenney thought his team needed to hustle more for 50-50 balls and use slide tackles to break up plays as Bethel did.

“We’ve got to fix it — that’s all there is to it,” Kenney said of the early-season struggles.

Granted, there are teams out there that would like to have picked up points in two of three games and be in contention to win each of those games, but Kenney has high expectations for his team, even despite losing most of the starting lineup to graduation and injury.

Newtown tied host Bunnell of Stratford 1-1 on September 10, then played to a 2-2 deadlock against Portsmouth, R.I., at Blue & Gold Stadium on September 13.

In the Bunnell game, Makenna Cerney assisted a Brenna Kelly goal. Sophomore Megan Doyle was Newtown’s goalkeeper and came up with five saves.

Against Portsmouth, Kelly and Jess Keller hit the back of the net, and Cerney added another helper. Senior goalkeeper Alyssa Ruefenacht, whom Kenney was only hopeful of getting back in the lineup following an offseason injury, returned to action and made ten saves.

Ruefenacht made nine more saves on Bethel shots, but it wasn’t enough as her counterpart, Sophia Corbo denied ten shots and benefited from one blast clanking hard off the crossbar during a furious Newtown flurry late in the opening half.

Keller got Newtown on the board on a penalty kick following a Bethel handball inside the 18-yard box in the second half. Cerney evened the score and, moments later, had a great chance to give NHS the lead but was denied by Corbo in a one-on-one situation.

Following a September 18 visit to New Fairfield, the Nighthawks are slated to host Brookfield for a 7 pm start at Blue & Gold Stadium on Saturday, September 20. This is the first of a home-and-home (with plenty of practice time in between) mini series with the Bobcats. NHS will visit Brookfield in its next game, but not until Friday, September 26, at 3:45 pm.

What Kenney wants to see from his team for a good chance to turn these close battles into victories is “effort — period. That’s it. That’s all I want to see.”