Heading into the October 6 race against a tough Pomperaug of Southbury squad, Doug Russell, Newtown High School’s girls’ cross country coach, was excited to see what his team would do. After Pomperaug’s Ivy Walker led the field, winning the 5K course on the grounds of Fairfield Hills (finishing in a time of 19:21), in came Newtown’s Sarah Mawdsley (19:39), and teammate Lu Hage (19:52), followed by Erin Tressler (20:02) and Emma Bayuk (20:25).

Newtown’s ownership of the two through five spots helped seal a 25-33 win. The Nighthawks also bested Brookfield, 15-49, to improve to 9-1 with just one regular season meet (an October 13 visit to Joel Barlow of Redding) on the slate before the postseason gets underway.

“That’s exactly what we meant to do today — work the pack,” Russell said of his cluster of runners overtaking a group of finishers from Pomperaug who earned the sixth- through tenth-place spots. “You can’t ask much more from these guys that what they did today.”

Russell also got top-20 overall performances from Nighthawks as follows: 11. Maddie Findley (21:53), 14. Kelsey Miller (22.05), 16. Willow Pears (22:28), and 19. Sarah Lyon (22:45).

“I told them it was their home course — ‘take it,’” Russell said.

And that they did. After Bayuk crossed the finish line in fifth place, Pomperaug’s cluster of runners didn’t begin to come across for another 15 seconds.

The Newtown High boys’ squad lost a pair of close ones, falling 30-27 to Pomperaug and 30-25 to Brookfield. Riley Rising was Newtown’s fastest finisher, coming in as the fifth-place runner in a time of 17:19. The Hawks’ other top finishers are as follows: 7. Joel Duval (17:31), 8. Christian Lestik (17:34), 11. Ryan Escoda (17:54), 14. Brenden Reeds (18:13), 15. Ethan Burg (18:16), 16. Dylan Lew (18:24), 18. Dylan Bartlett (18:37), and 19. Joshua Bent (18:43).

“They’ve made a lot of progress and still have a lot of room for improvement,” said Carl Strait, coach of the boys’ team. “I’m looking forward to seeing what they can do on the 21st.”

Both Nighthawk squads still have a couple of competitions remaining as they prep for the postseason. The Wickman Park Invitational, in Manchester on Saturday, October 10, gets underway at 9 am. The meet at Barlow, which will also include Masuk of Monroe and Kolbe Cathedral of Bridgeport, starts with the boys’ race at 4:30; the girls compete at 5 pm. The SWC championships, at Bethel High on October 21, will also feature 4:30 and 5 pm start times.