Ansonia hadn’t lost a football game in 48 consecutive tries dating back to the start of the 2011 season opener — one shy of tying Cheshire’s state record — running all over their Naugatuck Valley League opponents and others in state playoff games, en route to a trio of Class S state championships.

On October 17, the storied Chargers with 19 state championships in all, ran into the South-West Con-ference’s Newtown High School football team and saw their chance at making history abruptly stopped. The host Nighthawks stymied Ansonia’s running attack throughout the night and prevailed in a 14-8 nail-biter.

Newtown improved to 6-0 this year and is starting to build a winning streak of its own, and Ansonia fell to 5-1. The Nighthawks lost in the state playoffs last year, but haven’t fallen in a regular season game since the 2011 campaign. Touchdown runs by Jared Pearson and Nick Rubino stood up thanks to Newtown’s best defensive performance so far this fall.

Cheshire’s state record, which has stood since the mid-90s, was on the line Friday, which explains why so many fans packed the stands and hillside at Blue & Gold Stadium. Newtown Coach Steve George refused to put any emphasis on roadblocking a history-making victory for the Chargers.

“That’s their streak, that’s their business, that’s their accomplishment. I’m proud of my kids tonight for just beating a good opponent in front of us,” George said. “To break the streak was not our goal; to win the game was.”

The Nighthawks used a devastating defensive effort to hold the Chargers to their lowest regular-season point total in who knows how long; the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference’s web-page results go back as far as 2006.

During that time, the Chargers have made a habit of scoring 40, 50, even 60 or more points at any given match-up. On this warm evening, however, the Nighthawks were too strong on the defensive side of the ball, disrupting almost every strategy the Chargers attempted — on the ground and through the air; up the middle or to the outside.

“I think we bottled ’em up pretty good for most of the first half and the second half, too,” said George, noting that it’s not easy to contain a tough, fast team such as the Chargers through all four quarters of a game.

Newtown’s defense has been strong all year, allowing 18 or fewer points in each of their six contests to date. This shutdown performance, however, came against Ansonia’s offense which tallied 61 points in its previous game and had, until Friday, put up 36 as a season low score.

“I think it was will. We just wanted to get to the quarterback; we just wanted to win and we weren’t going to let anybody stop us,” said linebacker Ben Mason, who routinely made tackles for losses and pressured Ansonia QB Jaiquan McKnight. “It obviously feels awesome.”

 “I liked the way we stepped up, played well, and worked hard,” said defensive end Ryan Shaw, one of several NHS defenders to contribute to Ansonia’s offensive struggles.

As dominant as Newtown’s defense was, Ansonia’s was also up to the task, holding the Hawks to their fewest regular season game points in three years. And Newtown was without one of its major scoring threats in kick returner/ receiver Troy Frangione, out with an illness.

It’s been a tough week or so, with players battling back from, or being sidelined by various health is-sues and ailments, George noted. The coach knew it would be a tricky task to thwart Ansonia’s seem-ingly unstoppable winning ways, so he resorted to a variety of plays designed to throw the opponent for a loop.

Newtown scored with 1:13 left in the first quarter when running back Pearson took a direct snap and ran the ball up the gut for an 18-yard scoring burst. Bryce Mather tacked on the extra point and New-town held the lead through the second quarter and into halftime.

In an effort to keep the ball away from Ansonia’s quick kick return players, George elected to use an onside kick on each of his team’s three kickoffs. After their initial score, the Hawks recovered the first onside try when Ethan Carpenter leaped high in the air, grabbed the bouncing ball and held on despite a hit that sent him head over heels.

The fans went crazy.

Early in the second quarter, Newtown had a shot at taking a two-possession lead in a matter of sec-onds. On fourth down with seven yards to go and the ball at Ansonia’s 30 yard line, another trick play nearly extended the lead. Quarterback Jacob Burden handed off to Pearson who then overthrew an open Burden for what could have been a 30-yard scoring strike.

Newtown’s defense — led by the efforts of Ben Mason, Tim Krapf, Nick Samuelson, Shaw, and Chris-tian Morlock with quarterback sacks and backfield tackles, along with Carpenter, Joe Santella, Julian Dunn, and Nick Lotrecchiano with pass breakups — continued to come up with stops. A Samuelson sack put an exclamation point on the home team’s defensive stinginess just as the halftime whistle blew.

Newtown’s defenders combined for seven quarterback sacks totaling 49 yards lost. Lotrecchiano had an interception; Krapf and Mason had 16 and 13 tackles, respectively; Santella registered nine tackles and deflected a trio of passes; and Samuelson and Morlock both had seven tackles.

“They ran our guys down — they got a step on us,” Ansonia Coach Tom Brockett said. “We didn’t exe-cute on the offensive side.”

After Newtown held the ball for much of the first two quarters, Ansonia dominated in time of posses-sion in the second half, but fell behind 14-0 late in the third. The Chargers also failed to move the ball inside Newtown’s 40 yard line until the middle of the quarter.

Ansonia finally caught a break when Newtown was whistled for having too many men on the field ahead of a punt return. A fourth and six became fourth and one, and the Chargers went for it, picking up the first down.

They converted a second fourth and one scenario, but did not execute a third opportunity on fourth down on this second half-opening drive. Carpenter made a leaping knock-away at the goal line to pre-vent a TD on third and eight from the 21. And on fourth down, Carpenter did it again, jumping high to deflect what would have been a chain-moving catch.

One play later, a Nighthawk fumble put Newtown’s tired defensive back on the field. This time, Lot-recchiano made a drive-ending leaping deflection of a pass on fourth and six at the NHS 29.

Jaret DeVellis, who logged 20 rushes for 147 yards, broke a 31-yard run on the next play to set the Hawks up with possession at the Ansonia 40. A 21-yard run by Pearson, followed by more gains on the ground, turned in by DeVellis and Rubino, brought the ball to the Ansonia four yard line. Rubino ran it into the end zone from there, helping to bring the score to 14-0 with 1:05 to go in the third.

Early in the fourth, Ansonia finally broke through. McKnight hooked up with Tyler Bailey on a 20 yard score on fourth and eight. A two-point conversion made things a bit more interesting.

After a punt, Newtown’s defense returned to its barely bend-but-don’t-break form and forced another turnover on downs at the NHS 31. After another Newtown punt, Ansonia had one last chance; the ball at its own 37 with 2:31 remaining.

Following a sack by Samuelson, a run play that went nowhere, and a tackle for a loss by Mason and Krapf, Santella sealed it by breaking up a pass attempt on fourth down with just 34 seconds left.

“Our defense stepped up so much,” Krapf said.

Brockett thought his team made too many mistakes on offense, but tipped his hat the Nighthawks. “They forced us to make mistakes.”

Burden, a first-year starter, didn’t have too much to worry about in his first handful of games, as the Nighthawks won by 20 or more points in each.

“This was my first big game. We stepped up to the occasion. Our defense played absolutely amazing,” the Newtown quarterback said.

Shaw described the game, the first in which Newtown failed to tally a sizeable lead by halftime, as “a little nerve-racking.”

Fans were asked not to go onto the field after the game, so several of the players climbed into the stands to celebrate with their supporters.

Another tough test stands to unfold in the Nighthawks’ next contest on Friday, October 24, when un-defeated Brookfield visits Blue & Gold Stadium for a 7 pm kickoff. It will be a rematch of last year’s South-West Conference championship game, which Newtown won 28-7.