Newtown High School's boys' lacrosse team avenged last year's South-West Conference championship game defeat to Joel Barlow of Redding - that unforgettable, wild comeback in which the Nighthawks erased a seven-goal deficit to force overtime before losing - with an upset of the Falcons in this year's tourney semifinals.

The Nighthawks, in the words of Coach Scott Bulkley, played their best game of the campaign in a 13-9 win over Barlow, at neutral site Weston High on May 24.

The fourth-seeded Hawks handed the top-seeded Falcons their first loss in conference play this spring.

Newtown is scheduled to take on third-seeded Weston, which it lost to 6-5 during the regular season, in the SWC championship game on Thursday, May 26. The game will take place at Blue & Gold Stadium, beginning at 7 pm.

Jared Pearson led scorers with four goals and two assists, Tucker Garrity had four goals, Layton Harrell registered four assists, Matt Meyers logged two goals and one assist, Scott Bauer had two goals, Mark Hall had a goal and Peyton Manning added an assist.

Faceoff specialist Mark Urso won 17 of 24 draws, giving the Hawks a decisive advantage in possession, and Dave Anderson had eight saves in goal. The defense was led by Charlie Fletcher, Gordon Walsh, Cayden Dunn, Chad Azzarito, Sean Wallace, Alek Budd, James Carney, Steve Faxlanger and Matt Dubios.

A key to Newtown advancing to the semifinals was that it jumped out to an early lead on Bethel en route to a 7-4 win in the quarterfinal round, at Blue & Gold Stadium, on May 19.

The Nighthawks scored a trio of early goals and never looked back.

"I liked that we came right out, we put some points right on the board, right off the bat," Bulkley said.

The Nighthawks built a 3-1 lead after one quarter of play, a 5-2 advantage at halftime, and a 7-3 differential heading to the fourth quarter.

Meyers netted a first-half hat-trick, and finished the game with those three goals and a pair of assists, and Colin McCafferty, Elliot Gregory, Garrity and Pearson all scored. Pearson added two assists, and McCafferty added a helper. Anderson made five saves. Urso was strong on the draw.

"That doesn't just happen," said Bulkley, crediting Urso and his teammates for working hard on winning draws in practices.

The final score could have been much closer, as it was in the regular-season finale when the teams met at Bethel High on May 14 - a 6-5 overtime win for the Nighthawks - if not for the return of Pearson, who was sidelined for that game, along with the efforts of Bethel goaltender Jake Craybas, who made 14 saves.

"I thought some of the shots we took were good shots. He just made the saves," Bulkley said. "They have a good defense and they have a good goalie."

Of course, Newtown also has a strong defense corps and goaltender. The D, led by Walsh, Fletcher and Dunn in the first half, held Bethel to only the two shots that got past Anderson. They limited the chances for the most part in the second half as well, and Anderson came up with the stops to help keep some distance between the teams on the scoreboard.

Bulkley was pleased with how his mostly-new-to-varsity lineup responded to its first playoff test.

"A lot of these kids have never been in this situation before," the coach pointed out.

Heading into the matchup with Barlow, Newtown was looking to win, but Bulkley welcomed the challenge as an opportunity for his team to get better regardless of the outcome.

"I think they're a good team and I always like to play really good teams," said the coach, who scheduled games against four very tough nonconference schools in the final two weeks of the regular slate.

The Nighthawks - despite having a mostly new look following the graduation of a bulk of its starting lineup a year ago - have proven they're a really good team, too.