Coach Ian Thoesen said during preseason that his team’s biggest strengths were on the pitching mound and in the batter’s box. Both assets were on display in his Newtown High School baseball team’s 10-0 rout of visiting Notre Dame-Fairfield, on a chilly, damp April 16 afternoon.

Sophomore hurler Will Burns fanned ten batters and allowed only two singles and a pair of walks in the mercy-rule, five-inning blowout.

“He’s a good pitcher, he pitched very well — he got ahead,” Thoesen said of Burns, who mixed his fastball, curveball, and changeup while working with catcher Grayson DeFelice.

Newtown’s offense spotted Burns a quick 4-0 lead after one inning of play, and Tom Tavar cracked a double in the bottom of the fifth to plate Newtown’s tenth run, ending the game.

“We put the ball in play, pitched well, and defense made the routine plays. If we can do that, we can be very successful,” said Thoesen, whose team has put up double-digit efforts twice and seen its pitching dominate twice, including a 1-0 setback to Bethel, in the early going.

Newtown was coming off a tough 14-2 loss at Masuk of Monroe on April 14.

“That was a good bounce-back from the other day,” Thoesen said following the 10-0 triumph over the Lancers.

The Nighthawks got production from up and down the batting order, as well as off the bench.

Leadoff batter Jack Petersen set the table with two hits and a walk, and scored a couple of runs. Dylan Goyette doubled and scored a run; Ryan Verdi doubled in his lone at bat, drove in a run, and scored one; CJ Demers walked, drove in a run, and scored once; Luke Galer walked three times and scored a trio of runs; Tavar had that walk-off extra-base hit in his only at bat; Charlie Curtis was two-for-two with an RBI and run scored; Charlie Eppers walked and drove in two runs; Karl Miller had an RBI; DeFelice contributed a hit and walk; Spencer Chard had a hit and RBI; and David Braun walked and scored.

“We’ve got a good team. We can compete. That was a good confidence booster today,” Thoesen said.

The Nighthawks looked to carry some momentum into an April 19 home matchup with Pomperaug of Southbury and pulled out a 4-3 walk-off win in eight innings. It was a walk-off in more ways than one, as Zander Kasbarian walked with the bases loaded to force home Tavar.

Pomperaug forced extra innings with a two-out homer in the seventh. Petersen pitched two strong innings and Braun went six solid frames for the win. Braun scattered six hits, allowed two earned runs, struck out ten, and walked only one.

Demers had two hits and an RBI, Eppers knocked in a run, and Goyette blasted a go-ahead homer, making it 3-2 in the third.