Nighthawks’ Season A Success Despite Early Tourney Exit

By Andy Hutchison

The Newtown High School girls’ basketball team was eliminated in the first round of the Class LL State Tournament in a 53-31 loss at No. 3 Bulkeley of Hartford on Tuesday night.

Just qualifying for the tournament, however, was an achievement the team could be proud of, given the rocky start it had to the season.

The Nighthawks, after winning just two of their first nine games, went 8-3 in their last 11 games to finish the season 10-10 and qualify for both the state and South-West Conference tourneys. Newtown advanced in its state tourney qualifying round game on Saturday, beating Brien McMahon 62-58 to climb into the tourney’s official first round.

“We bounced back. To come from 2-7 to win 11 games is just an outstanding job by the players to not give up — to not quit,” Newtown Head Coach Shawn O’Brien said.

“We fought through it and it feels really good to win,” senior Katie Condon said after Saturday’s win. “We played all of the best teams in our conference [early on] and on top of that we’ve never played together before.”

It was a rebuilding year for the Hawks and the team started to come together midway through the season. “It was a really big success,” said sophomore Sara Kelley, adding that the team will be able to carry over the winning ways at the start of next season.

“After a 2-7 start not many teams would say ‘we need to put our nose to the grindstone and get out of this,’” Condon said.

McMahon, however, was one of them. The Senators opened the campaign in similarly frustrating fashion, going 1-6 before turning it on to win eight games.

Newtown was ranked No. 30 in Class LL and McMahon (which went 8-12 in the Fairfield County Interscholastic Athletic Conference) was the No. 35 seed. Saturday’s qualifying round contest, which Newtown hosted, was one O’Brien expected would be close given the strength of both the SWC and FCIAC and what he knew about McMahon.

O’Brien was right about this game being a tight one. Eight points was the biggest lead each team held in the opening half. Five points was the biggest advantage in a nip and tuck second half. But the Newtown coach never would have predicted how high scoring this game was — especially in the first half.

The teams combined for 78 first-half points and it was 40-38 Newtown at the break.

“I was surprised with the first half by both teams,” the coach said. “I expected it to be a lot lower scoring game. I don’t think anybody could expect 78 points in a half.”

Both teams shot well and scored a bulk of transition points in a back-and-forth battle. Newtown’s full-court press, meanwhile, led to several points off turnovers and also resulted in some success for McMahon when the visitors were able to break the press. It was 14-10 Newtown after one quarter and the visiting Senators outscored the Nighthawks 28-26 in a fast-paced second quarter.

After spotting the host Nighthawks an early eight-point advantage, the Senators went on a 12-0 run late in the first quarter/early in the second, for an 18-14 lead. Newtown’s Kelley and McMahon’s Kaylin English traded three-pointers and the teams continued to go back and forth throughout the second quarter.

McMahon built its biggest lead at 29-21. The Nighthawks, though, hit a trio of three-pointers on their next four possessions to close to within 31-30 and continued to find ways to score for a 36-31 lead. McMahon finally overcame Newtown’s 15-2 run and took a 38-37 lead before Kelley’s three-pointer in the waning seconds of the half gave the Nighthawks a two-point edge at the intermission. Junior Nora Lynn Shimko came up with a few steals and big long-range shots to aid Newtown’s offense.

The game remained close, although a lot more defensive, in the second half. Newtown led 51-49 through three quarters and held McMahon to just nine fourth quarter points.

The Senators led 56-54 with 2:56 to play but were outscored 8-2 in the final minutes. Newtown senior Morgan Knees scored four straight points for a 58-56 Hawks advantage and Newtown held on.

Kelley led the way with 21 points, Knees had 18, Shimko had 12, and seniors Condon and Katie Power finished with 7 and 5, respectively.