Unbeaten in 11 straight games to close out the regular season, Newtown High School’s boys’ soccer team certainly couldn’t ask for much more momentum heading into the postseason, but the Nighthawks are doing anything but getting caught up in their own winning ways.

“We’re not that team — we know who we are. We’re just going out and playing hard every game,” Newtown Coach Brian Neumeyer said.

The postseason will get underway on Friday, October 30, when third-seeded Newtown hosts No. 6 New Fairfield, at 3:30 pm. Favorites on paper as the home team with better seed, the Nighthawks are guarded for good reason. Although they’ve been on a roll, they don’t take anything for granted. Experience in the postseason could be a factor; this is a new-look team from a year ago as a dozen players graduated. And most of this year’s games have been close ones — six of Newtown’s wins have been one-goal battles.

The Hawks tied visiting Bethel 3-3 in their second-to-last contest, on October 22, before fending off Joel Barlow of Redding 3-2, in another home game, on October 26. The win over Barlow was Neumeyer’s 200th.

The Nighthawks, who were beaten by Barlow in last year’s SWC quarterfinals, aren’t thinking about how far they can go in the postseason. Not even considering the Hawks defeated Barlow, this year’s No. 2 seed in the bracket, not once but twice.

In the most recent victory over Barlow, Paul O’Leary, assisted by Brian Araujo, and Shane Gattey had first-half goals as Newtown took a 2-1 lead into the intermission, and James Carney’s insurance tally, making it 3-1 early in the second half, turned out to be the winner. Goalkeepers Zach Laros and Nick Beourgouis, who have split duties in games throughout the season, each played a half once again, and combined to make a dozen saves.

In the Bethel game, Newtown’s Senior Night contest, the Nighthawks fell behind 2-0, clawed back for a 3-2 lead, and settled for a draw. Elliot Bennett had two goals and Gattey scored for the Nighthawks.

Newtown went 9-2-2 in conference play and will take on a New Fairfield team that went 8-4-1, and handed the Hawks one of their losses back on September 11, in the season-opener, a 3-1 game in New Fairfield.

“It’s something we are thinking about,” Neumeyer conceded. “But we’re not going to let that get ahead of what we want to do, and that’s play hard.”

Read more about the Nighthawks in the October 30 print edition of The Bee.