Newtown High School's football team did in its home opener what it did in the season opener: Shut out the opposition.The Bee.

The Nighthawks blanked Brookfield 14-0 at Blue & Gold Stadium on September 22, and improved to 2-1; Newtown previously blanked Pomperaug of Southbury then fell to Xavier of Middletown. Brookfield dropped to 1-2 this fall.

Quarterback Ryan Kost completed a 25-yard touchdown pass to Shea Talbot to break a scoreless deadlock with 2:07 left in the third quarter.

Dan Mason, two plays after intercepting a pass, scored on a 47-yard run into the paint as the Hawks went ahead by two scores with 9:02 remaining in the fourth quarter.

Mason picked the ball near the Newtown 30 and ran it across midfield but a penalty on the Nighthawks brought it back to the NHS 32. On the next play, Matt Dubois took a handoff and scampered 21 yards to the Brookfield 47 to set up Mason's TD.

Joe Pagett, who had a touchdown-saving tackle, also had an interception, and Riley Ward also picked a pass.

"I'm proud of the effort. My kids really stepped it up in the second half," Newtown Coach Bobby Pattison said. "Collectively the secondary played much better this week."

The Hawks committed several penalties and some turnovers and Pattison would like to see his players cut down on the mistakes.

"We've got to clean that up," the coach said." Too many mistakes and too many penalties. I'm proud of the effort but we have to get better every week."

Read more about the game in the September 29 print edition of