Newtown High School’s field hockey team avenged its regular-season setback to Bethel with a convincing 5-2 victory in the South-West Conference tournament quarterfinals, at Blue & Gold Stadium, on October 25.

With the win, the third-seeded Nighthawks earn a trip to Immaculate of Danbury, the bracket’s second seed, for a semifinal contest on Monday, October 29. Game time is set for 3 pm.

Top seed Pomperaug of Southbury and No. 5 New Milford also advanced.

Bethel, the sixth seed, had beaten Newtown 2-1 during the regular slate, joined only by Pomperaug as teams to defeat the Nighthawks this fall.

Newtown jumped out to a 2-0 lead and answered Bethel’s first-half tally just 1:23 after the Wildcats halved Newtown’s lead, to go up 3-1 at the intermission.

Bethel scored 11:15 into the second half, to again pull to within a goal, but the Nighthawks kept the pressure on offensively and added a pair of late cage-finders.

Katie Goyda scored twice, recording Newtown’s first and fourth goals of the night.

Kat Trammel also scored a pair of goals, making it 2-0 off a penalty corner with 12-plus minutes to go before the break, and answering Bethel’s first goal, with just 1:31 left in the opening half.

Trammel’s first tally was assisted by Ali Kelleher and Katie Dirga, off a corner, and her second goal was set up by Dirga.

In the second half, after making it a 3-2 game, Bethel threatened to tie but the Nighthawks withstood some Wildcat chances before turning on the attack at the other end of the field.

Consecutive penalty corners led to a Goyda goal off a deflection of Kelleher’s shot from the top of the circle, with 11:11 left.

Kelleher capped the scoring when she whipped home a hard shot, to the far side, after taking a pass from Goyda.

Newtown generated 16 penalty corners and 19 shots toward goal.

Nighthawk goaltender Rebecca Filiato made four saves.

“We came out wanting to beat them. I think the girls had a bit more drive, and we wanted to finish in the circle,” Newtown Coach Stephanie Kearns said of the difference between this game and the October 1 win by Bethel.

Newtown handed Immaculate its first loss with a come-from-behind 2-1 victory over the visiting Mustangs, on October 14.

“It’s definitely going to be a tough game,” Kelleher said of the semifinal clash, adding that the Hawks will work hard in practice to prepare for the Mustangs.

The winner advances to the Thursday, November 1 championship tilt.

“It’s basically what you play for all season – to play in those tough games,” Kelleher said.