Title Hopes Dashed For Newtown Boys Lacrosse

The Newtown High School boys lacrosse team's quest for back-to-back South-West Conference titles is now over.

In Wednesday's conference semifinal game against second-seed New Fairfield, Newtown remained within striking distance of breaking the Rebels' five-game winning streak. But as the clock slowly ticked away, so did the Nighthawks' scoring opportunities.

With a 4-2 lead entering the third quarter, New Fairfield (16-2, 12-1) buckled down its defense and limited Newtown to only two goals over the final 24 minutes. The Rebels earned their third-consecutive trip to the finals with a 9-4 victory over Newtown in Weston.

With the Nighthawks' title hopes dashed, disappointment filled the sideline.

"It's obviously very disappointing because that's what you prepare the whole year for," Newtown coach Glenn Adams said. "To come up short is always going to be disappointing but we've got something to look forward to in (the Class L state tournament)." 

One of the game's turning points came after Newtown attackman Tim Dalton scored with 2:47 remaining in the third quarter to cut the Nighthawks' deficit to 5-4. New Fairfield responded in commanding fashion less than two minutes later.

With Newtown (12-6, 9-3) carrying the momentum, New Fairfield defenseman Adam Broderick scooped up a ground ball near midfield, raced to the Newtown net and fired a shot past goalie Brandon Body.

"It was huge," New Fairfield coach Marty Morgan said of Broderick's goal. "It gave us an opportunity to breathe a little bit, not having to worry about playing defense as much, and as hard."

The goal certainly propelled New Fairfield, which outscored Newtown 3-0 over the final 13:21. Attackman Ryan Mallon scored his team-leading 41st goal of the season to extend the Rebels' lead to 7-4, while Matt Robertson and Dan Miley also scored in the fourth quarter.

New Fairfield had already defeated Newtown 7-3 on May 15, but the Rebels carried added motivation entering the rematch.

Last season, New Fairfield stormed into the conference title game with a 41-game winning streak, but Newtown pulled out a dramatic 9-8 victory.

Before Wednesday's semifinal, Morgan gathered his players and delivered a motivating message about setting their sights on defeating last season's conference champion.

"They're the defending champs, it's our job to take that away from them. We need to get to the league championship game," Morgan said he told his players. "It was huge for us to do that."

While Newtown was narrowly out-shot 25-20, it failed to capitalize on its scoring opportunities all too often. After New Fairfield attackman John Pendergast scored just eight seconds after the opening face-off to give New Fairfield a 1-0 lead, Newtown's Will Northrop knotted the score just 29 seconds later.

But, Newtown scored just once more in the first half, as New Fairfield carried a two-goal edge into halftime.

New Fairfield goalie Nick Costabile made ten saves (eight in the first half) on the afternoon, equaling the total made by Body.   

Newtown failed to reach double-digits in goals for the fifth time in its last seven games (3-4) and it marked its lowest scoring output since May 15.

"We got plenty of shots, we just didn't get them on the cage," Adams said. "If we get them on the cage, we're making the goalie work and he's not going to have any of those saves. We didn't even give him an opportunity to get saves."