Nobody’s Perfect — Errors Hurt NHS Softball Team In Title Game Loss

By Andy Hutchison

STRATFORD — A perfect regular season and run through the postseason that lasted all the way to the Class LL State Championship game finally came to an unrewarding end for Newtown High School’s softball team. Newtown fell 4-2 to Westhill of Stamford in the June 12 Class LL title game, suffering its first loss in an otherwise thrilling campaign.

The Nighthawks, the top seed in the tourney, hurt themselves with a rare display of fielding miscues and watched as the second-seeded Vikings celebrated the title both teams had fought so hard in an effort to win, under the lights at DeLuca Field.

The Nighthawks could not hold onto an early 2-0 lead as Westhill scored a pair of unearned runs to tie the game and scored a pair of late runs to win.

“Tip your hats off to Westhill for a tremendous season. They’re a great team and they came out on the better end of the stick today,” Newtown Coach Bob Guererra said. “They were better than we were today. … We let ’em back in.”

Newtown, which played the role of the “visiting” team and batted first due to a tourney coin flip, struck for a pair of early runs in the opening inning.

After Monica Macchiarulo led off with a single and Kate Bowen was hit by a pitch, Newtown later had runners on second and third and cashed in when Megan Gibbons reached on a run-scoring error. Jessica Gibbons followed with an RBI single for a 2-0 advantage.

A misplayed infield popup and throwing error led to a pair of Westhill runs to even the score through one inning of play.

The game remained a 2-2 deadlock until the bottom of the fifth. The Vikings put more pressure on the NHS defense and took advantage of two hits and an error to take their first lead. Allison Macari smacked a two-out, two-run single to center field to make the difference. Westhill pitcher Jen Joseph held Newtown to four hits. Her counterpart, Bowen, surrendered only four hits as well, but it turned out to be enough.

“We didn’t score after the first inning. You can’t do that — you just can’t do it,” Guererra said.

Jessica Gibbons led off the seventh with a single but the Nighthawks could not claw back. With two outs, Natalie Dunn made good contact, but hit the line drive right at Westhill’s center fielder to end the game.

Both teams ended the season with only one loss, but the timing of Newtown’s could not have been much worse. Even so, the team members will be able to look back on the overall success of 2010, which included a South-West Conference championship.

“The season might be over but what we did this year will never be over,” Bowen said. “I’m going to look back on this season and I’m going to smile.”

“They were a joy to be around. We had a lot of fun all season long. Let’s not have this put a damper on all we’ve accomplished,” Guererra said he told his players after the game.

Newtown will lose five players to graduation, including Bowen, who had six strikeouts in the pinnacle game, and her battery mate, catcher Ashley Kuligowski, who made a tremendous diving catch just in front of the backstop fence in the title game. Also leaving shoes to fill are Nicole Elias, Ally Modzelewski, and Racheal Ruiz.