Once the flood gates opened Newtown High School’s boys’ soccer team poured it on. Newtown, the No. 12 seed in the Class L State Tournament, erased an early 1-0 deficit and pulled away in the first half on the way to a 9-1 trouncing of visiting and No. 21 Kaynor Tech of Waterbury, at Blue & Gold Stadium on a warm-for-November 7 afternoon.

This marks Newtown’s first state playoff win since 2016 — some of those being hard-fought defeats in Class LL. With the win, the Nighthawks moved on to visit No. 5 Suffield (a 9-0 winner over No. 28 University High of Hartford) on Thursday, November 9, at 2 pm.

“It’s definitely an accomplishment we’ve been waiting to see happen,” said captain Kyle Ruddy, who scored Newtown’s third goal.

“It’s a good feeling,” said captain Connor Muir, who knocked on the door with some strong chances before setting up Newtown’s first goal and adding one of his own during a first-half scoring barrage.

After falling behind, Newtown was relentless in keeping the pressure on. The first goal was a pretty one. It came 11:03 into the action when Muir sent a cross from the right side to Brady Lavelle who, at the far post, one-timed the ball into the top left corner of the goal.

After another dozen-or-so minutes of Nighthawk domination and near misses, Newtown took the lead with exactly 16 minutes to go before the half. Johnny Celli deposited a rebound following Luke Kellerman’s shot on goal.

Newtown then registered goals off back-to-back corner kicks. Kellerman sent the ball in from the right side and Ruddy celebrated his birthday with a net-finder, heading the ball inside the near post for a 3-1 lead with 13:13 left. Curtis Verdi’s left-side corner led to Gabe Petertonjes depositing a loose ball for a 4-1 cushion with 12:19 to play.

The goals kept coming. Newtown tallied six times in a span of 6:22 to all but secure the win.

Jonah Kaiser scored just 38 seconds after the Petertonjes deposit when he blasted home a shot from long range to make it 5-1 with 11:41 left. It took just another 1:20 for the Hawks to tack on more when Ryan Payne crossed the ball to Celli, whose shot was inadvertently knocked into the goal by a Kaynor Tech defender. Muri capped the opening-half scoring with 9:38 to go when he banged the ball home from in close.

Newtown piled up seven corner kicks in the first half as Kaynor Tech struggled to get the ball past Newtown’s midfielders.

“We knew what we had to do when we came out here,” said Lavelle, a captain, adding that it was unfortunate that the Hawks gave up an early goal but certainly bounced back nicely.

Noel McLeod and Jeff Prout, off a pass from Landon Dorsey, accounted for the second-half scoring. Kaiser, McLeod, and Prout all netted their first varsity goals. Substitutes got plenty of playing time, particularly in the second half. All told, 29 players got in on the fun.

“It’s nice to see everybody play,” Ruddy said.

“We were rolling,” said Kellerman, another captain, adding that the Hawks would look to keep the momentum going in the next round.

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