STRATFORD — Newtown High School’s football team scored its first touchdown late in the opening half and piled on three more to pull away in the second half, defeating the host Bunnell Bulldogs 31-7 on October 15.

The Nighthawks improved to 3-2 and Bunnell fell to 4-2.

Late in the first half, the Nighthawks were close to being held without a first-half touchdown for the second game in a row when quarterback Dylan Magazu connected with Eric Gray on a 25 yard touchdown. It was 10-7 Nighthawks at the break.

After a stop on Bunnell’s first drive of the third quarter, penalties aided a Newtown scoring drive which culminated with Magazu’s two-yard scoring rush with 6:30 to go in the stanza.

The Bulldogs appeared poised to claw back to within a single score but had a drive stymied when Noah Clark intercepted a pass. The Hawks went the other way for seven more when Caleb Smith broke free up the middle and went 56 yards for a score with just 20 seconds left in the third.

In the fourth, Smith scored again, cashing in on fourth and four on the Bunnell 15 when he stiff-armed his way to paydirt to cap the scoring with 4:21 to go.

Carter Mixon had an interception in the end zone on the game’s last play. Chris Stowell had a first half INT.

Andrew Jacobs and Magazu had some strong rushes as Newtown relied heavily on the ground game. The defense held the opposition to just a single TD for the third time in the last four games.

Special teams was a strong point with Rich Guman making good on all of his extra point attempts as well as booting a 33 yard field goal. Punter Brock Dukate had some strong first-half kicks. Newtown’s offense put together effective drives throughout the second half and the Hawks did not punt in the third or fourth quarters.

Whether it was moving the pigskin or stopping Bunnell’s offense, Newtown found a way to end drives in their favor throughout the night.

“I thought it was good to finish drives. In the past few weeks we didn’t finish drives,” said Newtown Coach Bobby Pattison, whose team lost 27-14 at Darien on September 24 and fell 10-7 to Ridgefield on October 1 before having a bye week.

“We controlled the ball so I was happy. It’s good to get back in the win column,” Pattison added.

Newtown will host 3-2 Cheshire on Friday, October 22, at 7 pm.

Read more about the win over Bunnell in the October 22 print edition of The Bee.

Sports Editor Andy Hutchison can be reached at andyh@thebee.com