Log In


Reset Password
Archive

NHS Football Team Beats ND 43-6-Easy Wins Giving Subs A Chance, Ironically Resulting In Harder Work In Practices

Print

Tweet

Text Size


NHS Football Team Beats ND 43-6—

Easy Wins Giving Subs A Chance, Ironically Resulting In Harder Work In Practices

By Andy Hutchison

They say practice makes perfect, and when teams aren’t doing so well, harder work in practice is necessary to get better. Ironically for Newtown High School’s football team, the players are so dominant that they may have to work extra hard in practice too. The Nighthawks have to go all out on the school’s back field each weekday just to keep sharp for potentially tough games late in the season, and — they hope — in the postseason.

Newtown opened up a 34-0 first-quarter lead en route to a 43-6 triumph over visiting Notre Dame-Fairfield at Blue & Gold Stadium on October 20, marking the fifth time they won by 26 or more points in six “contests” this year.

They’ve hardly been contests. Newtown starters stood and watched most of this latest laugher as the reserve players got the bulk of playing time once the lead bulged to game-over status even before 12 minutes had been played.

The matchup was pushed back a day because of forecasted lightning. Once it finally got underway, it was the Hawks, not Mother Nature, who made the strikes — and did so again and again, something that has become routine.

Senior Dan Hebert scored a touchdown on the first play from scrimmage, a 57-yard rush, and there was no looking back as the championship-hopeful Hawks improved to 6-0 and winless Notre Dame stayed that way after a half dozen tries.

“We wanted to send a message right off the bat,” said Hebert, adding that the Hawks are out to prove they are an elite team in the South-West Conference.

One play, one score — that’s sending a message right away alright.

Cooper Gold scored three touchdowns and Julian Dunn had another, and sophomore kicker Connor Miller kicked a trio of field goals. Ten Nighthawks took handoffs, and more than two dozen — including 12 freshmen and sophomores — made, or assisted in, tackles by the time this game was completed.

“It’s fun to see the young guys on the field,” Hebert said.

Hebert and the starters are getting accustomed to it. They rarely get to play much, if at all, late in games and, a few times have sat out every play of the third and fourth quarter, as the Nighthawks have pretty much been in the lead since the season’s opening kickoff back on September 14. Hebert’s TD rush against Notre Dame turned out to be his only carry of the day, and quarterback Drew Tarantino was held to a season-low three pass attempts.

NHS did trail at halftime of their October 13 visit to Oxford, but came from behind and pulled away for a 47-21 triumph. They survived a bit of opening-night rustiness to defeat New Milford 21-7, but have otherwise thoroughly dominated the competition, putting up 40-plus points in four of their other five wins. They “settled” for a 35-7 domination of then-unbeaten Brookfield in the other.

The Nighthawks have outscored their six opponents a cumulative 231-62, or an average of about 38-10. NHS has done almost all of its damage in the first half of every game. The Hawks scored all 21 in the second quarter against New Milford, 35 of 42 in the opening half against Pomperaug of Southbury, 34 of 43 in the first two quarters against Stratford … and the trend continued in jumping all over Brookfield with all five touchdowns before the intermission. They’ve lit up the competition and the scoreboards on a weekly basis; it’s no wonder the Blue & Gold scoreboard was malfunctioning a couple of weeks ago.

With all of these easy wins, and coming off back-to-back trips to the South-West Conference title game … and given the records of the next three teams on the schedule (Bethel is 2-4, Immaculate of Danbury is winless, and Bunnell of Stratford is 1-5), it’s got to be hard for the Hawks not to look toward a possible conference title game and return trip to the state playoffs.

“It’s hard not to look ahead,” acknowledges Hebert, but he insists the team members do take it one game at a time and focus on the opponent at hand.

Assuming Newtown takes care of business in the next three games, a third straight SWC title game appearance seems likely. Only Newtown, Masuk of Monroe, and Joel Barlow of Redding are perfect in conference play to this point. Barlow and Masuk face each other on November 9. Newtown is slated to face Masuk in the annual Thanksgiving Eve battle (November 21 at Blue & Gold). If both teams have the best conference records going into that tilt it will once again be designated the SWC championship game.

Masuk been piling up easy wins as the Hawks have, putting up 41 or more points in every outing thus far.

There are penalties imposed on coaches for winning by 50-plus points, not to mention Newtown Coach Steve George doesn’t want to rub it in, nor does he want to miss a chance to see up-and-coming players in game action. The only negative side to winning so easily is that the starters aren’t getting the plays in on a consistent basis — a good problem to have in the eyes of any coach especially since it equates to wins and players avoiding injury.

“It’s a little bit of both. I mean I’m happy the starters got the job done early, but at the same time I’m happy to see the young kids who work so hard at practice get some time on the field too, today,” George said. “So they deserve it just as much as the older guys do.”

Could the starters being on the sidelines for so much of the game action hurt them when it comes time to face Masuk and possible state playoff opponents?

“It probably will down the road. We have to work them extra hard in at practice to make sure they’re in shape and they’re ready for four quarters,” George said.

“We bring intensity every day and make sure we get better,” Hebert added.

There are still some games to be played and the a Newtown-Masuk rematch for the trophy for the third straight year is not a forgone conclusion, although it’s certainly a strong possibility.

Masuk dominated Newtown in the regular season-turned title game in each of the last two years, and the Hawks will be looking for title-game redemption, assuming the pieces fall into place once again.

“It’s fun to look ahead, but we’ve got Bethel this week and Bethel’s a good team. They were in most of the games that they’ve played,” George said. “They’ve played a lot of these teams tough — it’s not like they were one-sided blowouts — so we’re expecting a game from them this week.”

Newtown will also face playing on Bethel’s grass surface. The Hawks are used to playing on artificial turf, and their only other game on grass thus far was the Oxford clash. NHS struggled to adjust to the soft sod in the early going of that game. Bethel, historically, has played Newtown tough. Bethel, this year, lost to Bunnell by nine and Barlow and Oxford by 18 and 14, respectively.

Comments
Comments are open. Be civil.
0 comments

Leave a Reply