As March rolls around the Newtown Youth Recreational Basketball season is coming to an end. Newtown rec basketball offers a variety of competitive age groups with the highest being the Senior League at the high school division.
Championship night was on March 7 at the NYA which featured a matchup between Team Verdi and Team Collins. Alongside the championship game the night at the NYA hosted the All Star Game with Team McManus pulling off the win.
Alongside the All Star Game and championship, the night included a three point contest between 41 seniors. The three point contest concluded with Matthew Pontore bringing home the hardware.
Team Verdi, captained by senior Curtis Verdi, took home the 2025 Senior League Championship in a thrilling 50 to 46 overtime win over Team Collins, captained by senior Andrew Collins.
The game stayed close throughout most of the game with Team Verdi seemingly pulling away with a 46-43 lead with less than 5 seconds to go. Junior CJ Manfredonia shot a three pointer off target which was quickly rebounded by captain Andrew Collins and passed back to Manfredonia who got the second shot off just before the buzzer and scored, sending the game to overtime.
Following the last second shot, Team Collins could not keep the momentum going and were defeated after four free throws by Team Verdi put the game out of reach.
The Senior League brings a sense of community and unity to the seniors and underclassmen that participate, even if they are competing against each other. At the end of the day whether you are the leading scorer or don’t score at all you end of having fun playing together.
“I would definitely recommend playing senior league to any underclassmen even if you’re not good at basketball. It’s a great experience for any athlete and it's very fun to play basketball against your classmates and form a camaraderie with your teammates,” NHS senior Nate Twitchell said.
Senior Wes Keyes was the top scorer for Team Verdi scoring 28 on the night. Manfredonia led the effort for Team Collins with 14 points with 4 three pointers alongside Collin’s 11 points in the loss.
“The final was very memorable, it was a very competitive game and it was a fun season to scorekeep. I got to see a lot of basketball both good and bad. I thoroughly enjoyed scorekeeping and hope everyone else enjoyed the season as much as I did,” NHS senior Edward Liu said.
Continuing the excitement, the following day on Saturday the NYA also hosted the 7th and 8th graders championship featuring the 9-0 Purdue Boilermakers coached by Nate Crone and Luke Doherty against the 4-5 Kansas Jayhawks coached by Martin Dunn and John Barzetti.
Top scorer number 23 Felix Gendren led the Boilermakers putting up 13 points alongside Mateo Gutierrez’s 10 points in the Boilermakers 45 to 32 win over the Jayhawks. The Jayhawks number 23 Giovanni Fusaro and number 5 Nick Michael put up 10 points a piece in the effort.
“The experience of coaching these seventh and eighth graders has been extremely rewarding. We really got to get to know them over the course of the season and teach them about basketball. And of course it's nice it led to a championship at the end of the day,” Crone said.
Following the championship game the high school gym hosted the All Star Game for all participating eighth graders. The blue team, coached by All Star coaches Crone, Dunn, Barzetti and Doherty pulled off the win with all stars from the Jayhawks and Boilermakers.
“That championship game was awesome, I don’t think there has been a better Senior League final. Big congrats to Curtis on the win, and major props to Andrew for bouncing back from a shaky start to make it all the way to the finals. I’m grateful for everyone’s positive energy throughout the season,” Senior League Commissioner Rick Mcleod said.
Comments