Volleyball Rallies to Sixth Straight Victory

An early and somewhat unconventional deficit against Weston might have shaken the Newtown High School volleyball team Monday night. But despite the early hiccup, the Nighthawks weren't about to let their winning streak end.

After watching Weston roar back from 10-3 down to steal the first game 25-22, the Nighthawks responded by winning the next three games (25-13, 25-9, 25-23) and in the process, sealed their sixth straight victory.

"To come out and fade so quickly was kind of tough for us to handle," said outside hitter Abbey Doski, who led the Nighthawks with 28 digs, 14 aces and 10 kills. "I think we did a really great job of keeping ourselves motivated, staying confident, working back through that."

Newtown scored the first seven points of the second game, and led by as many as 12 — they held leads of 22-10 and 23-11 — before Doski evened the match when her return shot from the net was mishandled by the Trojans.

"It's unfortunately pretty usual for us — that inconsistency. They can come out and they have that energy and that confidence in the beginning," said Weston coach Jamie Charles. "This is totally a game of momentum, so whatever team has the momentum is going to be on the roll."

For the remainder of the match, that team was Newtown.

With the match knotted 1-1, the Nighthawks stormed out to leads of 6-1 and 13-4 early in the third game. Weston was able to move within seven points of Newtown's lead — trimming it to 16-9 — but the Nighthawks reeled off a match-high nine unanswered points, closing the game out on a service ace from Doski.

"The big difference is the first game, we serve received very well. I don't think we made any errors and that's one of the crucial parts of high school volleyball," Charles said. "The next two games, I don't know how it happens but we made a ton of serve receive errors."

Those mistakes again plagued the Trojans (5-3) late in the fourth game. After the Trojans stormed back from a 12-3 deficit — its largest in the final game — to take a 23-22 lead, their next serve sailed out of bounds, allowing Newtown to even the score.

Setter Jess Lynch, who led the Nighthawks with 33 assists, then put her team ahead 24-23 with a return shot. Newtown closed out the match when its return shot on the next play was batted out of bounds by the Trojans.

Lynch added 10 digs, while outside hitter Carly Iwanicki recorded 14 kills and six digs.

While Newtown continues to climb up the South-West Conference standings with a 6-2 record, coach Tom Czaplinski said there's still improvements his team must make, particularly with serving and passing.

"We're making a lot of improvements but we're also finding a lot more holes that we need to plug in," he said. "The season's still early and the girls are definitely improving on what needs to get improved on, but they've just got to put it all together one of these days."