Newtown High School’s baseball team got back into the win column with its second nail-biter against New Milford this spring. The Nighthawks went on the road and edged the Green Wave 3-2 on May 1; the Hawks won 5-4 in a matchup at home earlier this spring.

In the second contest between these foes Alex Schmidt broke a 1-1 tie with a two-run double and the Nighthawks hung on behind a combined strong pitching effort from Jamie Piccuillo and Danny Leyva. Newtown got its first run on a Leyva RBI single.

The Nighthawks then bounced back from a 7-2 loss to Masuk of Monroe on May 3 and a 2-1 setback to New Canaan on May 4 with a 6-2 victory at Notre Dame-Fairfield on May 6 and a 10-0 blanking of Stratford on May 7. The Hawks improved to 6-10 overall with three games to play as they compete for South-West Conference and State Tournament spots.

NHS was locked in a tight one with Masuk of Monroe on May 3. In a game played at Fairfield Hills under the lights, starting pitcher Dhilan Amin was lights out for six innings before the Panthers knocked him out of the game on a hit by pitch, single, bunt in which the batter reached on an error, and infield single to tie the game and reload the bases with no outs. Masuk went on to score six runs in the top of the seventh for a deceptive 7-2 win.

Newtown scored its runs when Hayden Conklin hit a sacrifice fly to score Evan Nikolis who was hit by a pitch and when Kieran Garrity singled and scored on a Schmidt go-ahead double in the third inning. Justin Feinstein came on in relief and pitched four and two thirds scoreless innings for the win.

This was quite a pitching duel for the better part of the night. Amin was stellar in striking out 11 batters and working around occasional trouble, including one-out triples in both the fourth and fifth innings. With Newtown clinging to a 2-1 lead in the fourth Amin got a strikeout and ground out to strand a runner at third and in the fifth he fanned consecutive batters to escape. Masuk had another runner in scoring position in the sixth thanks to a hit by pitch and sacrifice bunt but Amin recorded a strikeout looking and another swinging to end the frame.

“We played well for six innings. The seventh inning we didn’t do too well,” Newtown Coach Ian Thoesen said.

“The score didn’t reflect how good a baseball game it was,” Masuk Coach Brian Hourigan added.

Newtown followed up a hard-fought loss at New Canaan with a 6-2 victory at Notre Dame-Fairfield on May 6. Wes Keayes pitched four innings of one-hit shutout ball and Ryan Schmidt tossed three innings of one-hit shutout ball for the Hawks. JoJo Meriano had a hit and knocked in two runs; Finn Geissler had three hits and drove in one; and Jack Carta walked and had an RBI.

NHS hosted Stratford, at Fairfield Hills, the next night. Amin tossed five innings of three-hit, 11-strikeout ball and Leyva pitched a hitless frame with one strikeout. Meriano and Jonathan Moseman doubled and Moseman also smacked a triple. Kieran Garrity, Yarema Stasyshyn, and Evan Nikolis all had two-hit games. Moseman drove in three runs, Nikolis knocked in two, and Lucian Place, Finn Geissler, Carta all had RBIs.

Sports Editor Andy Hutchison can be reached at andyh@thebee.com.