DANBURY -- After honoring its 10 senior players and two senior managers, the Newtown High School boys hockey team capped its Senior Night festivities with a 3-1 triumph over Brookfield/Bethel/Danbury on Saturday at the Danbury Arena.
And the seniors made it a night to remember. Senior goalie Patrick McLoughlin made 21 saves and seniors Jonathan Lovorn and Cooper McLean each had a goal and an assist. Senior Matt Sabia had a goal and senior Dan Harrison had three assists.
"We've got 20 players who can skate and play hockey. We don't just capitalize on one player," Lovorn said. "That's how we win games. We play with everybody and everyone goes as hard as they can."
This senior class has been the driving force behind the Nighthawks, who improved to 8-1-2 and appear poised to do great things in the South-West Conference playoffs and the Division III state tournament. The Nighthawks are the top-ranked team in the state in Division III.
"We came into the game knowing it was going to be tough," Newtown coach Paul Esposito said. "BBD is struggling, but they're a good hockey club. I think the kids realized that their record didn't mean anything and it was going to be a tough game today. It was a good win for us."
BBD fell to 2-10 and is experiencing some growing pains with a young squad after spending the last several seasons in the thick of the SWC and state title hunts.
"We'll just take it one game at a time," Ice Cats coach Rusty Granacker said. "We're having a little bit of a rough season. We're pretty young defensively, and offensively, we're struggling to put pucks in the net. I thought we played pretty well today. As the game went on, we played better. Just little spurts and little mistakes are hurting us. From two or three weeks ago, the team is improving, so we're happy with that."
The Nighthawks struck first exactly five minutes into the first period as Lovorn wristed one home from the point on the power play. McLean and Harrison assisted Lovorn, who made a nice move at the blue line to give himself some room to work. The Ice Cats' Brendan Battochio was in the penalty box serving a cross-checking minor.
BBD tied it less than four minutes later with a power-play goal of its own. John Vitti scored off a nifty pass from Will Lawrence while Newtown's Dominic Cartelli was in the box for slashing.
McLean broke the tie just 1:33 into the second stanza, burying a crisp, cross-ice pass from Lovorn. Sabia added a power-play goal at 13:56 of the second off a pass from Harrison to make it 3-1 Nighthawks. BBD's Eric Stoeckle was in the box serving an interference minor for his hit along the boards.
McLoughlin made several key stops in the third period to protect Newtown's two-goal lead, including one on Daivon Ruggiero's back-hander from the doorstep with less than four minutes remaining.
"Having him back there is great," Lovorn said of McLoughlin. "When you look at some of the other teams, their biggest weak links is goaltending, but for our team, we have a goalie who can go all three periods for us and post shutouts when he needs to. He'll stand on his head for us."
BROOKFIELD/BETHEL/DANBURY 1 0 0 -- 1
NEWTOWN 1 2 0 -- 3
First period: 1. N, Jonathan Lovorn (Cooper McLean, Dan Harrison) ppg., 5:00; 2. BBD, John Vitti (Will Lawrence) ppg., 8:32.
Second period: 3. N, McLean (Lovorn) 1:33; 4. N, Matt Sabia (Harrison) ppg., 13:56.
Third period: None.
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