How do you top scoring 23 runs? By posting 24 in the next game of course.

That is what Newtown High School’s softball team did, following up a football-like score total against Bunnell of Stratford with a similarly wrong-sport-like 24-0 clobbering of host Weston on April 12.

Then came a significantly closer but still lopsided 9-0 blanking of host Waterford on April 15, followed by a 10-2 trouncing of visiting Pomperaug of Southbury on April 17.

The Nighthawks improved to 7-0 heading into Wednesday’s clash with Bethel and won 17-0. Newtown scored a combined 23 runs in its first three games and averaged a dozen runs in those first seven matchups.

Since this isn’t actually football season there is a long way to go on the schedule — the Hawks are barely more than a third of the way through — but things are looking pretty darn good for this team.

In the win over Weston, a five-inning mercy-rule outcome, Newtown racked up 25 hits. Julia Berry had two hits and scored three runs. Maddie Thoesen collected a trio of hits and five runs batted in, Bri Pellicone logged four hits and five RBI. Sydney Adolfson had two hits and three RBI. Sofia Caruso had three hits and two RBI. Noelle Marrazzo had three hits, four RBI, and four runs scored. Gabby Ansman registered three hits, an RBI, and three runs scored.

The Hawks had 11 extra base hits with Pellicone hitting a pair of doubles, and Adolfson, Berry, Thoesen, and Caruso also hitting doubles. Caroline Gardner, Pellicone, Thoesen, and Caruso all hit triples. Adolfson homered.

Pellicone, Berry, and Marrazzo all stole bases against Weston. Thoesen and Gardner combined to take care of pitching duties.

Against Waterford, Thoesen had two hits, including a homer, and drove in four runs. Gardner had two hits and an RBI. Berry collected four hits, an RBI, and four runs scored. Berry doubled and tripled, and Pellicone also smacked a double. Berry and Thoesen each had a steal.

Adolfson went the distance in the pitcher’s circle, allowing five hits, striking out 11, and allowing no walks in her seven innings of work.

In the win over Pomperaug, Newtown got tested a bit more than the scoreboard might indicate. The visiting Panthers took a 2-0 lead before the NHS offense got down to business. A pair of two-out, two-run home runs in the bottom of the second inning changed the face of the game.

Addison Cordova clubbed homered to left to tie things, and Thoesen hit a go-ahead bomb, also to left, for a 4-2 lead. The Hawks pulled away from there.

“The girls had to fight back. It was good to see,” Newtown Coach Joanna Closs said. “If they hit like this they can beat anybody.”

It was not just that the Nighthawks have been registering a lot of hits in each game, but that they have come from up and down the batting order.

Cordova is a freshman and the number nine hitter in the lineup.

“When your 9 hitter hits a home run to tie the game that’s impressive. That’s a dangerous lineup,” Closs points out.

“The freshmen have been really clutch,” Thoesen said.

Her thought was echoed by Adolfson, who also saw freshman Ansman hit a clutch homer in her first varsity at bat, in a 7-2 season-opening victory over St Joseph of Trumbull.

In a five-run third inning against Pomperaug, Gardner bounced a double down the left field line, was sacrificed to third, and scored on a fielder’s choice. Cordova drove in a pair and reached third when Pomperaug’s center fielder and right fielder collided going after her fly ball. Thoesen hit a two-run double in the frame.

NHS capped its scoring when Adolfson singled home Gardner, who had doubled, in the fourth.

When all was said and done, Gardner doubled twice, and Rachel Casagrande and Thoesen each doubled. Berry had a stolen base.

Adolfson settled in to limit the Panthers to those two runs on just three hits and registered a baker’s dozen strikeouts while walking one.

“Second time through the order they started to get their confidence back. I feel like that spark really helped us,” Closs said of Cordova’s game-tying long ball.

“It definitely helps with confidence,” Adolfson said of the run support she gets (and gives herself when she comes through at the plate, of course. “I know my defense is behind me as well.”

In addition to making the routine plays, Newtown’s fielders flash the leather at times. Second baseman Lila Accousti snared a line drive with a sliding catch in the win over Pomperaug.

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