Not surprisingly, Newtown High School’s boys’ basketball team gave host Bunnell of Stratford all it could handle for the better part of their South-West Conference tournament quarterfinal contest, on February 22.

Ultimately, Bunnell’s accurate 3-point shooting helped pave the way to a 65-52 win.

Sure, the Nighthawks were a seven seed and Bunnell a two seed, but the Bulldogs had to overcome a double-digit deficit to defeat Newtown in the regular-season finale, a few days earlier. And Newtown was in contention for win as late as the fourth quarter of all six of its defeats this winter.

In the rematch, after the Bulldogs got off to a fast start, Newtown rallied for a slim halftime lead — 27-25 following back-to-back Robert DiSibio fast break buckets, the second of which just beat the buzzer — and kept things close deep into the fourth quarter.

The Nighthawks were within three points, at 49-46 with 4:24 left, but the Bulldogs finished on a 16-6 run.

Bunnell made six 3-point field goals, including three in the third quarter to seize the lead for good.

“The adjustment from last game to this game is we wanted to take away as much of the dribble-drive as we could but they hurt us with the 3 ball,” Newtown Coach Tim Tallcouch said. “They buried it. Give them credit.

Bunnell’s Maximus Edwards finished an alley-oop with dunk to cap an 11-0 run that gave the Bulldogs a 38-29 lead with 4:31 left in the third quarter. The basket gave Edwards the Bunnell record for points as he surpassed the old mark of 1,468.

Undeterred, Newtown got to within 40-38 with a Jack Petersen right corner 3-pointer and Todd Petersen dunk in transition highlighting the late-stanza scoring. A Bunnell 3-pointer in the waning seconds gave the hosts a 43-38 edge heading to the fourth.

DiSibio scored 13 points, Jack Petersen had a dozen, Todd Petersen scored 11, Jack Mulligan contributed eight, Tucker Garrity added six, and Riley Ward tacked on a pair of points for Newtown.