South Windsor Falls to Newtown in Class LL Quarterfinals 2-1

The South Windsor High girls soccer team’s season came to an end Wednesday with a tough 2-1 loss to Newtown in the quarterfinals of the state Class LL tournament.

Amy Martin, the South West Conference Player of the Year, stunned the Bobcats by scoring two goals in the first 18 minutes of the game to give Newtown a 2-0 lead.

Martin’s first goal came on the counterattack in the fifth minute, as she was sent through down the left side by Tressa Scott. Martin raced past one defender and calmly chipped a shot over South Windsor goalkeeper Hanna Basile’s shoulder for a 1-0 lead.

Martin struck again in the 18th minute, as she curled a gorgeous free kick from about 20 yards out into the left side of the net to give the Nighthawks a two-goal advantage.

“We were fortunate to get off to a great start,” Newtown head coach Marc Kenney said, noting that Martin has played some of her best soccer. “This is the time when she should shine. … I’m on her case 24/7, but she always, always always responds to the pressure.

South Windsor (14-3), for its part, was staggered, but it did not fall.

Instead of wilting and allowing the season to end there, the Bobcats picked themselves up and fought back.

In the 32nd minute, Amy McConnell managed to fight for some space down the right side and crossed to Auna Harvey, who cooly one-touched the ball into the net to bring South Windsor to within a goal at 2-1.

With the amount of pressure that No. 3 South Windsor applied to Newtown, the No. 6 seed, the Bobcats seemed certain to bring the score level.

“We switched to a 4-4-2 by the 20 minute mark and it worked well,” Bobcats head coach Ed Duclos said. “The final 20 minutes of the second half, we switched to three forwards up front, and we were going to get it.”

But with Nighthawks defenders Anna Northrop, Bridget Power, Brenna Kelly and Lydia Beiter patrolling the back, the equalizer never came in those final 40 minutes.

“Bridget Power has played midfield all year, but [in the second round] against Greenwich, I moved her back to sweeper,” Kenney said.

At the sound of the final buzzer, Newtown players streamed onto the field in celebration as South Windsor players broke into tears.

A crestfallen Duclos struggled to find the words to capture both the disappointment of the loss along with the pride he felt for a team that fought to the very end.

“I am incredibly proud of them,” he said. “A team that just kept growing and growing. They did everything they could do.”

Unity is something that nearly every team strives for, but is rarely ever achieved. Based on the Bobcats’ collective reaction at the end of the second-round victory over Hall and the loss to Newtown, unity was perhaps the top quality the team had. The players celebrated as a team and they mourned the loss as a team.

“The way we’ve lived [this season] is ‘Twenty-five strong,’” Duclos said. “Everybody is connected to every single person. There is no spare parts. Everybody has a role.”

Kenney said that he and his team knew how fortunate Newtown was to leave South Windsor with a victory.

“When you come here in this facility against a team that knows how to play here, it’s so satisfying,” he said.