Loss Marks End Of More Than Season For Tightly-Knit Hawks

By Andy Hutchison

WINDSOR — The game was over, the other team and its fans celebrated, and the Newtown High School boys’ basketball players remained on the bench, holding their heads in their hands, facing the reality that it was over.

The Nighthawks’ 57-51 loss to Windsor in the second round of the Class LL State Tournament last Friday night marked more than just an end to the season. For the six seniors who donned the NHS blue and gold, it marked the end of an era.

Twins Dan and Jason Smith, PJ Cochrane, Kevin Troy, Greg Rodden, and Mike Maher have played basketball together since long before their high school careers. They’ve hit the courts together since elementary school.

It is always significant when a senior class has its last game but, considering all of this team’s starters and players who see a bulk of the playing time are seniors, this group will leave a bigger-than-usual rebuilding process for Newtown Head Coach John Quinn. And it’s more than just the number of seniors — it’s what they brought to the court, Quinn notes, that will be hard to replace.

“They’re kids who get it, they’re kids who care about each other and have a focus,” Quinn said. “It’s absolutely the end of an era. This is an extremely special group of kids.”

The closeness of this group, in addition to the fact they fought hard to nearly overcome a 13-point fourth quarter deficit against top-seeded Windsor before falling short, left the eyes of the coaches and players welling up with tears.

“I’ve never been so close to a bunch of guys my entire life,” Jason Smith said. “Every practice, every game — we played with a lot of heart.”

Dan Smith added that, despite falling in the second round, the season was successful in the minds of the Newtown players. After all, the Hawks won 16 games and, as a No. 16 seed in the state tourney, almost found a way to knock off a No. 1 seed in Windsor.

“I had a great time. I think we all played well together,” Maher said.

There’s a reason the Nighthawks had that chemistry on the courts.

“We’ve been playing together since we were 8 years old,” Rodden pointed out. “I’m definitely going to cherish every single practice, every single game — every minute I spent with these guys.”

Newtown doesn’t have a player in the middle to match the prototypical 6-foot-5-or-so force most teams possess. The seniors are all listed between 6 feet and 6-2, and yet they came up with timely blocked shots by working together, double-teaming players when necessary. They managed to find the right recipe of full court defensive pressure, positioning on both ends of the floor and ball control on offense be in contention to come out on top in all of the games they played this year.

“We may not be the tallest team, the fastest team, the best shooting team — but if I had to chose five seniors to play with it would be these guys,” Troy said. “I’ve never played with a group of guys with more heart. It was a lot of fun — I’ll definitely miss it.”

The seniors will go their separate ways now and — save a pickup game in the summer or down the road — will never play as a group again.

But they’ll have plenty of good memories.

“It was the best time of my life,” Cochrane said.