One advantage to practice over game play is repetition. For Newtown High School’s field hockey team, they got quite the practice-like experience in their season-opener, a 5-0 blanking of visiting Watertown, at Treadwell Park on September 12.

The Nighthawks compiled 18 penalty corners and scored off two of them. Watertown goaltender Claire Lyman made several sprawling saves to keep the Nighthawk offense from doing more damage. Having those penalty corners during game play, created by so much pressure on Watertown’s defense, stands to benefit the team even more than if they came in a practice setting.

“To be able to practice those in a game situation is very helpful,” Newtown Coach Stephanie Kearns said.

“I think making them is a good start and something to work with. If we capitalize on them we’re, going to do really well this year,” Newtown captain Cam Griffin said. “We were making a lot of opportunities for each other.”

Newtown’s offense was sparked by a natural hat-trick (three unanswered goals) by Kat Trammel. Shannon Kelleher and Katie Goyda also scored, and Katie Dirga notched an assist.

Newtown had strong defensive play from Meghan O’Rourke and the entire back line, helping goaltenders Gigi Marino and Rebecca Filiato combine on the shutout. Everybody got into the game and helped get the season off to a winning start.

“It was great to see everyone on our team make a contribution to this game,” Kearns said.

The Nighthawks continued their success at the start with a 7-3 triumph over Hall of West Hartford at Treadwell on September 13, a 3-0 road win at Simsbury on September 16, and a 6-1 triumph at Brookfield the next day.

In the Hall game, Goyda netted five goals and had two assists, Reagan Schoen scored twice, and Dirga added an assist. Newtown tallied 11 corners, eight of which came in the first half, scoring off two of them.

“The team came out and played a very strong offensive game. Katie Goyda was the lead scorer with a total of five goals that were finished from a couple of fast breaks and well-assisted setups. Overall, our team played extremely well together, and playing well all over the field brought us to this win,” Kearns said.

Against Simsbury, Goyda scored twice and Trammel had a goal and an assist.In the win over Brookfield, Reagan Schoen and Izzy Butler scored twice, and Goyda and Dirga each had one cage finder. Goyda had three assists, and Shannon Kelleher added one assist. Newtown piled up 11 corners and capitalized on one.