MONROE — If you were looking for a little suspense this spring the Newtown High School baseball diamond, or whatever field the Nighthawk sluggers were visiting, was the place to be. Among 20 regular-season games were 11 decided by a single run — including the Nighthawks’ last three, and four of their final five matchups heading into the postseason. Newtown went 6-5 in those nail-biters and posted a 13-7 overall mark and earned the No. 4 seed and a conference tournament quarterfinal-round home game.

Newtown is scheduled to host Joel Barlow of Redding in the postseason opener on Sunday, May 21 at 2 pm. The Hawks defeated Barlow 3-0 in their April 20 matchup.

The Nighthawks are riding some winning ways momentum into the playoffs. Newtown followed up a 9-0 shutout of Notre Dame-Fairfield on May 8 with a 2-1 win over New Milford on May 10, then edged Conard of West Hartford the next day (all at home) before holding off host Masuk 3-2 on May 16.

These close calls can be fun or nerve-racking for coaches and players.

“It’s both. I have a lot of confidence in our guys and our pitchers,” Newtown Coach Ian Thoesen said after his Hawks built a 3-0 lead and escaped Masuk with the W by stranding the tying run in scoring position in the bottom of the seventh inning.

Playing in so many tight games stands to prepare the Nighthawks to be loose in tense situations in the postseason.

“It makes these guys ready to go. It puts them in pressure situations,” Thoesen said.

In the win over New Milford, the Nighthawks trailed 1-0 from the second inning into the sixth when the Hawks tied things before walking off with a run in the last of the seventh. Wes Keayes had a pinch hit, two-out RBI double to knot the score. In the seventh, Reid Burns was hit by a pitch. Kieran Garrity pinch ran and stole second before moving to third on a wild pitch. Dhilan Amin then executed a suicide squeeze bunt to bring in the winning run.

“It was a little intense but we’ve been practicing it, working hard at it. You’ve got your boys in the dugout pumping you up and making you confident,” Amin said.

In the win over New Milford, Jamie Piccuillo went 4.1 innings, allowing the one run on four hits. Amin relieved and not only drove in the winning run with his clutch bunt but picked up the win on the mound, tossing two and two thirds scoreless, hitless frames.

Next came the 1-0 win over Conard. Finn Geissler picked up the win on the mound going five innings, allowing only three hits and striking out six, and Will Buns pitched two hitless innings of relief. Josh Rosen knocked in the lone run. Against Masuk, with their conference tournament seeding locked up, the Hawks treated this matchup like an off day throw day for their pitchers to throw a bit to keep fresh without exhausting their arms. The top three starting pitchers — Will Burns (two innings, two hits, six strikeouts), Geissler (an inning, one walk, one strikeout), and Piccuillo (two innings, one hit, two walks, one run), along with closer Amin (two innings, two hits, one run) — all got in some work as the Hawks prepare for the games that matter most.

The 3-2 final was every bit as close as the score would indicate despite the fact Newtown built a 3-0 lead. Burns and Geissler each escaped bases-loaded jams in the second and third innings. Masuk jammed the bags without getting the ball out of the infield in the third with a hit batter, error, and walk. A fly out to second base ended the threat.

Newtown had taken a 2-0 lead in the top half of the third when Danny Leyva chopped a two-out single through the left side to drive in a couple of runs. In the fourth, Yarema Stasyshyn led off with a single and stole second on the next pitch. Geissler reached on a ground ball fielder’s choice when Stasyshyn got caught in a pickle between second and third and was tagged out. Newtown got another two-out run when Hayden Conklin crushed a double to deep left field.

In the bottom of the fourth, Masuk’s Cody Benegoss was tagged out by third baseman Stasyshyn attempting to stretch an RBI double into a triple. The score remained 3-1 and the Panthers got out of trouble of their own when Newtown left the bases full in the top half of the fifth.

Piccuillo worked an efficient one-two-three bottom of the fifth. The Hawks could not capitalize on a Reid Burns single leading off the sixth and Masuk again had its chances in the bottom half of the inning with a leadoff walk. Amin relieved Piccuillo and, after getting a long fly out, hit a batter, but worked around trouble with a pair of ground outs.

After Newtown went down quietly in the top of the seventh, the Panthers scored a run on a pair of hits and had the tying run at second base when Amin finished things off by inducing a pop to second.

Among Newtown’s ultra-close games was a 6-5 setback to the SWC’s top seed, New Fairfield, a game in which the Rebels came from behind. Masuk got into the tournament as the No. 8 seed and will visit New Fairfield.

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