By Kim J. Harmon

There may have been some uncertainty with the team – okay, a lot of uncertainty – but none with Ron Isler.

While the Newtown High School baseball team was facing the prospects of a long and difficult season, senior Ron Isler seemed more certain than ever he would make his senior campaign the best one yet.

Which he did.

Batting .515 (35-of-68) with 10 doubles, a triple, 11 runs scored and 12 RBI (not to mention going 2-5 on the mound with a 2.92 earned run average and 51 strikeouts in 45 innings of work), Isler – who will be on his way to Virginia Wesleyan in a couple of months – was named first team All-SWC and first team All-State.

It is a fine finish to a fine career, but getting to that point was not easy.

Especially considering the tumultuous start to the 2003 season.

Incoming coach Carl Strait, seeking to cure the ills of a long struggling baseball program, made a number of controversial decisions while putting the team together back in April and those decisions were not only unpopular, but hard for the remaining players to deal with.

“It was real tough,” said Isler, 18, “because I had such a positive outlook before all the kids got cut. I played with those guys for so long and I was looking forward to playing with them one last time. It was hard for the first couple of weeks and seeing so many new faces was a shock. It took a long time to build up trust and team unity.”

Isler was one of a small handful of players who had any varsity experience and the Nighthawks started the season 0-7…which seemed to validate the popular conception around town that the team was going nowhere fast.

But near then end of that 0-7 start, a strong game against archrival Immaculate (a 2-1 loss in Danbury) made a nice statement about the talent on this young team.

That was one turning point.

Another turning point – the most important turning point – came shortly after the Immaculate game. On a cold afternoon in Trumbull, Isler snared a line shot back through the box in the bottom of the seventh inning and – after a primeval bellow exploded from his mouth – the ‘Hawks had their first win.

“It was a thrill because it was out first win,” said Isler. “If that ball had gotten through, another one would have slipped through our fingers and that would have been hard on us.”

But from that point – and from the point when Isler snared a line shot back through the box against St. Joseph’s to end a game – the ‘Hawks went 6-7 and were just a couple of breaks away from qualifying for the CIAC state tournament for the first time in several years.

“No one had any trust in each other at the beginning of the season,” said Isler, a third baseman and pitcher, “but we started to become a unit. We started to click. It turned out better than we thought it would, but when we were playing we weren’t thinking that way. The team has always been one or two games out of the states and it’s tough to never get there.”

But despite the 0-7 start and the 6-14 final record and despite the fact the young and inexperienced ‘Hawks had been flying so far under the radar, Isler nevertheless attracted the attention of enough coaches that he found himself a spot on the All State team.

“It was a goal I’d had ever since I got to high school,” said Isler. “That was why I wrestled (in the winter), to get stronger for baseball. I thought I had a shot, but I was a little shocked I did get it because this goes to kids who have had team success.”

He is not resting on that, though. With the start of his college career just a few months away, Isler is playing out of Bethel in the Housatonic (college-age) and American Legion (19 and under) leagues. In the Housatonic loop, Isler is pitching and in Legion ball he is doing both.

The extra ball will prepare him for college.

“I wanted to go to a team with a winning tradition and where I’d have a chance to play,” said Isler. “They were conference champs three out of four years. I saw them play and I felt it was a level of competition I could definitely play.”

Isler is an accomplished third baseman and pitcher, but Virginia Wesleyan is going to have him make a decision between the two positions and Isler – who already has a good assortment of pitches and a few different release points – is leaning right now towards pitching.

And he will make it happen.

Because if there is one thing that has become clear, it is that Ron Isler is a competitor and determined to succeed.