The Newtown High School girls’ soccer team continues to battle for a South-West Conference playoff spot. The Nighthawks sit in ninth place, just one point behind eighth place Pomperaug of Southbury, with two conference games remaining on the schedule. The top eight teams in the SWC will make it into the playoffs.

Newtown defeated host Stratford 4-0, a team with only one win in conference play, on October 14, to improve to 3-4-4 in conference play (4-4-5 overall).

Shelby Tolla, Makenna Cerney, Sarah Houle, and Madeline Sieber scored for Newtown in the win over Stratford.

“It felt nice to get back to winning. We really committed to ensuring we got the victory tonight. I was really pleased by our effort,” Newtown Coach Marc Kenney said.

The win ended a stretch of six games with out a victory. Coming off a 2-1 loss at Joel Barlow in Redding on October 9, the Nighthawks faced Danbury’s Immaculate Mustangs at Blue & Gold Stadium. This game continued the tough schedule Newtown has had throughout the season and the Hawks fell 3-0.

Immaculate controlled possession for most of the game. However, Newtown held the Mustangs scoreless until ten minutes left in the first half mostly, due to stellar play in goal by senior Alyssa Ruefenacht. She was battered with shots but came up with save after save until one squeaked by her on a rebound shot. Ruefenacht continued her stellar play into the second half, giving up only one other goal before she was taken out to give backup keeper Megan Doyle, a sophomore, some experience. Newtown never got into an offensive rhythm in this game.

When asked what his team needs to improve upon for next game, Kenney said, “I think we need to just commit to focus on communication, cleaning up our technical play, and winning the individual battles. We had been making progress in all of these areas, but took steps backward against Immaculate.”

Kenney said he and his team members are disappointed with the performances against Barlow and Immaculate, but that they’ve remained positive.

“My players have reacted well to the results by working hard to get better,” Kenney said.

The win over Stratford was a nice rebound for the team. The Nighthawks will need to continue to work hard and improve as their season winds down and their playoff hopes hang in the balance.

“Going forward, we need to pretty much win out to qualify for the SWC tourney, so that is obviously our expectation,” Kenney said after the Immaculate game.

The Newtown coach continues to emphasize that this team is the youngest he has had in a while, making all of the games a learning experience in addition to a chance to earn wins. Kenney says the players’ ethic and optimism had not strayed this season.

Newtown is scheduled to face winless Kolbe Cathedral of Bridgeport on Friday, October 17 when Kolbe visits Treadwell Park for a 3:45 pm game. Newtown hosts Notre Dame-Fairfield on Tuesday, October 21 at Blue & Gold Stadium for a 7 pm contest. Notre Dame carried a 7-2-1 record into the middle of the week and is in the middle of the pack of the conference’s top eight teams. The Nighthawks close out the regular season on October 22 with a nonconference game against Pomperaug. The teams played to a 2-2 tie in their SWC battle earlier this month. Pomperaug has 14 points and Newtown has 13. Pomperaug’s other remaining games are against Stratford and New Fairfield, which had ten points and was in tenth place heading into the final couple of games.