By Steve Bigham

What should be a very smooth ride to a South-West Conference title showdown in June was expected to hit a very large bump in the road late this week.

For a day, the very talented and deep Newtown High School boys’ tennis team was going to be rather short in the manpower department.

For a day, the undefeated Nighthawks will probably taste defeat. They will surely put up a battle at Weston on Thursday, but will lack the firepower to pull it out.

With the high school on spring break, Newtown was expected to be without three key players for the match. Weston, it should be noted, is not on spring break and will likely be at full strength.

Missing for Newtown are defending SWC champ at second singles, Jon Perachio, and talented captains Matt Beres, fourth singles, and Peter Stephenson, first doubles.

Coach Martin Margulies is apprehensive about his team’s chances and was probably praying for rain. Although, he points out, he does have a strong nucleus of both experience and youth that should pick up the slack in the absence of Perachio, Beres and Stephenson.

A Weston loss will put Newtown in the Trojans’ rear-view mirror for the time being, but with the talent he’s got, Margulies knows his team will give chase down to the wire.

Newtown opened the season with a 6-1 win over Bunnell and a 7-0 trouncing of Notre Dame. It went on to defeat New Fairfield, 7-0, April 11. To date, it has dropped just one match in 21 attempts.

The Nighthawks were slated to wrap up the week at Stratford on Friday, then come home to face Bethel on Monday. Next Wednesday, Margulies and Co head to Jonathan Law in Milford.