Newtown Girls Hobbling Toward Postseason, Hope To Build Off Near Comeback

By Andy Hutchison

FAIRFIELD — The Newtown High School girls’ basketball team nearly overcame a 23-point third-quarter deficit but lost its fourth straight game as host Notre Dame-Fairfield held on for a 57-52 win on Monday night.

The Nighthawks, after winning seven of eight, have struggled down the stretch, in part because injuries have taken their toll. Newtown Head Coach Shawn O’Brien, though, won’t make any excuses and believes his team is capable of turning things around.

The season concluded at Oxford on Wednesday (after The Bee sports section went to press) and the Hawks now turn their attention to the playoffs. Notre Dame improved to 9-10 overall and Newtown stands at 11-8.

Despite the recent slump, there is some light at the end of the tunnel. The Nighthawks clawed back against Notre Dame, sinking seven of their nine 3-pointers in the fourth quarter en route to outscoring the Lancers 27-13 in the stanza to make things interesting in the final minute.

Newtown was held to just six points in each of the first two quarters and trailed 29-12 at halftime. Things got worse before they got better in the third. Notre Dame, which had lost eight of nine to begin the year but has won eight of ten since, built a commanding 42-19 cushion. A combination of suffocating Lancer defense and a tough full-court press and Newtown’s early shooting woes led to the big differential.

Then, the Hawks came to life. Down 44-25 after three periods, the Nighthawks used sharp shooting, a pressuring defense of their own and all-around hustle to get back into the game. Sara Kelley sank a 3-pointer to make it 47-30, Jen Brewer came up with a steal and lay-up to trim the lead to 15 and Jordyn Good saved a ball from going out of bounds to set up another Kelly basket. Suddenly, it was 47-34 with 4:50 to play and the Lancers burned a time out. But Newtown kept pushing. Ally Modzelewski and Brewer combined to force a turnover and Kelley cashed in with a baseline 3-pointer to make it 47-37 just seconds after the timeout.

The Lancers reestablished a bit of a cushion, taking a 14 point lead before Good sank a 3-pointer, Modzelweski forced a jump ball situation (the possession arrow gave the ball back to Newtown) and Riley Wurtz drained a 3-pointer to trim the lead to 54-46 with one minute to play. Good hit another shot from behind the arc to make it a six-point game with 22 seconds left, but the Hawks got no closer.

Newtown used a full-court press to force a pair of 10-second violations on Notre Dame during the comeback attempt.

“That’s one of the best stretches we’ve had the whole season,” O’Brien said of his team’s late-game performance.

The coach added that, unfortunately, his team shot woefully in the first half. “I think we shot poorly and put ourselves in too big a hole tonight,” O’Brien said.

Notre Dame’s Rose Bajda led all scorers with 31 points and could not be contained until the fourth quarter when Newtown seemed to do everything right.

Good finished with a team-high 14 points with a trio of 3-pointers in the final quarter, Kelley had 12, Wurtz added 10, Brewer dropped in 7 and Monzelewski 5. Carly Iwanicki and Jess Lynch each added 2 off the bench for the Hawks.

Newtown, on February 13, lost another five-point game, dropping a 52-47 decision at home to Brookfield. Prior to that, the Hawks lost 72-46 to possible South-West Conference Tournament first-round opponent Kolbe Cathedral. The Nighthawks have  played the past several games without three injured players.