SWC Champions! — Hawk Softball Team Captures Title

By Andy Hutchison

STRATFORD — Shortstop Natalie Dunn fielded a grounder, threw across to Colleen Cunningham at first base for the out — and the celebration began. Newtown High School’s softball team won the South-West Conference Tournament championship with a 4-1 win over Lauralton Hall of Milford at DeLuca Field on May 28, capping off a perfect campaign of SWC play in style with the team’s first SWC title.

Pitcher Kate Bowen allowed only three hits and, with the help of some sparkling defensive plays, lifted the Nighthawks — the tourney’s top seed — past No. 2 Hall. Bowen, who had pitched a perfect game with 12 strikeouts in a 4-0 semifinal round win over New Fairfield on May 27, earned Most Valuable Player honors.

“It feels absolutely amazing. For the seniors, we’ve been working for this for four years. As a team, we’ve been saying from day one ‘this is where we want to be,’ and we got here,” Bowen said. “We won it — and it means everything to us.”

Bowen credited her teammates for backing her up in the perfect game effort in the semis and in helping her three-hit Hall in the pinnacle game.

In the championship game, Rachael Ruiz had two hits and two runs batted in to spark the offense, Jessica Gibbons and Bowen both had two hits, and Dunn knocked in a run on a groundout. Newtown broke a scoreless tie with three runs in the fourth inning and that was more than enough for Bowen, who mixed her off-speed and fast pitches to keep the Hall hitters on their heels throughout the evening. Bowen had six strikeouts and made a dazzling fielding play of her own, sprawling out to snare a hard ground and tossing to Cunningham to prevent a hit in the seventh and final inning when Hall plated its lone run.

“She never surprises me. She comes out here and gives 110 percent every time,” catcher Ashley Kuligowski said.

The Nighthawks finally broke through in the top of the fourth. Newtown, despite being the No. 1 seed, played the role of the visitors and batted first in this game by virtue of a tourney-rules coin toss. The Hawks broke the ice when Bowen blooped a single to left field, Gibbons followed with a single to right, and Ruiz smacked a single to left-center to score Bowen for the game’s first run. Gibbons and Ruiz advanced to second and third on the throw home and that proved to be significant as both scored on ensuing plays: a wild pitch followed by Dunn’s run-scoring grounder.

“I think we were very, very tight,” Newtown Coach Guererra said. “I think our kids were nervous. We didn’t have a lot of kids who have been here before.”

The coach added that Bowen was out with an ACL injury last year and many of her teammates are freshmen and sophomores new to the lineup.

Bowen kept Hall from making any noise and Newtown tacked on an insurance run in the seventh when Gibbons led off with a single and later scored on a Ruiz double into the gap in left-center.

“It felt so good,” Ruiz said of coming through with those timely hits. “It motivated the team — picked everybody up.”

The Nighthawks hope to carry their winning ways into the state tournament, which was scheduled to begin on Wednesday (after The Bee sports section went to press).

“I think we have a lot of really good momentum right now,” Dunn said.

“When it’s a team effort you can build momentum and carry it for a long way,” Guererra said.