Throughout the campaign, the Newtown High School girls’ soccer team rallied late to tie or take the lead in games en route to qualifying for the postseason. Trailing visiting Simsbury in the final minutes of the Class LL state tournament first round game, at Blue & Gold Stadium on November 9, the Nighthawks — true to their flair for the dramatics form — scored to force overtime. Newtown ultimately fell 3-2 (6-4 in penalty kicks following double overtime). The season ends for No. 13 Newtown, and No. 20 Simsbury moved on to the second round.

Makenna Cernery made a move around a defender and dribbled into the left corner before crossing to Maddy Sieber, who one-timed a shot that bounced inside the right post to even the score with just 2:56 to play in regulation. Sarah Houle had given Newtown a 1-0 lead on a goal assisted by Cerney in the first half, before the Trojans answered with two goals to seize a halftime lead.

After a pair of scoreless ten-minute OTs, the teams played a best-of-five round of penalty kicks. Both squads scored twice in the first round, forcing a second best-of-five block of PKs; Simsbury outscored Newtown 4-2 to clinch the victory. Newtown goalkeeper Meghan Doyle made a tremendous diving save, and Alana Murray, Anna Biondi, Julia Sughrue, and Camryn Cicarelli scored during penalty kicks.

Newtown Coach Marc Kenney liked that his team came back, and showed fight as it has all season long.

“It’s par for the course,” said Kenney, whose squad pulled out a handful of one-goal wins and earned four ties for an 8-4-4 regular season because of its propensity to score late-game goals. “We’ve done a great job of fighting back.”

But the coach thought his team could have won the state playoff opener with a little more determination from the start.

“We didn’t play hard enough from the start and we made our job hard,” the coach said. “Even though we were winning we weren’t clicking.”

Simsbury (8-6-2 during the regular slate) got to more 50-50 balls, especially off Newtown goal kicks, thus keeping the ball on Newtown’s defensive half of the field for blocks of time throughout the game.

“The outcome’s tough and it’s going to hurt for a while. But, certainly, looking back on the season it’s building blocks if nothing else,” Kenney said.

The Nighthawks made a return to the South-West Conference tournament after not qualifying last fall, for the first time.

“I’m going to miss this group a lot,” Kenney said of his seniors. “They came every day and worked hard every day.”