Norwich — It was fitting that Norwich Free Academy’s biggest offensive play of Saturday’s football game ended with it having to recover the ball in Newtown's end zone.

It was the Homecoming Weekend from Hell as NFA kept ruining its momentum with four turnovers against the Nighthawks.

It was more help than unbeaten Newtown needed. Running back-payloader Dan Mason and the Nighthawks' brawny offensive line mashed their way to seven rushing touchdowns in a 51-14 non-conference beatdown.

Newtown (5-0) scored 17 points off Wildcats turnovers.

“You can’t make mistakes against a team like that in a game like this,” NFA head coach Jason Bakoulis said. “You’ve got to obviously take care (of the ball). Do your job each and every play.”

The Nighthawks did their job with brutal efficiency. They smashed-and-bashed their way to 363 yards rushing on 44 carries.

Mason, whose older brother, Ben, is raising Cain at Michigan, ran 31 times for 188 yards and three touchdowns for Newtown, ranked sixth in The Day's Top 10 state coaches’ poll.

“He’s a tough kid, without a doubt,” Bakoulis said. “He doesn’t want to go down. He fights and he scraps. That entire team, there’s a lot of tough kids.”

Quarterback Luke Melillo added seven carries for 76 yards and three touchdowns and completed 8 of 14 passes for 125 yards. Miles Rick also scored on an 88-yard run late in the game.

Elijah Parker completed 21 of 28 passes for 218 yards with three interceptions and scored on a 12-yard run for NFA (3-2).

The game went so wrong, so fast for the Wildcats that it’s easy to forget that they matched Newtown touchdown-for-touchdown early.

The Wildcats trailed 14-7 late in the first quarter when Parker uncorked a deep pass to Andrew Cote, who had gotten behind the Nighthawks’ secondary.

Newtown’s Joe Pagett knocked the ball out of Cote's hands at the Nighthawks’ 3-yard line and into the end zone, but NFA’s Kevin Pomroy pounced on the ball for a touchdown to tie the game.

The Wildcats wouldn’t get anywhere near that fortunate with their future mistakes.

NFA trailed 21-14 when it got the ball back at its own 22 with 53 seconds left in the first half. It quickly motored down to the Newtown 41, but Padgett picked off Parker and returned the ball to the Nighthawks’ 45 with 10.5 seconds remaining.

Melillo followed with a 36-yard pass to Jeff Garrity down the NFA sidelines with 1.8 seconds left, Devin O’Connell closed the half by making a 29-yard field goal.

NFA had a third-and-1 at the Newtown 38 on the first drive of the second half. The Nighthawks let it get no further and turned them over on downs.

Mason ran for a 4-yard touchdown to push his team’s lead to 31-14 with 4:39 left in the third quarter.

A botched handoff short-circuited NFA’s next drive at the Newtown 26. Melillo ran for a 3-yard touchdown to increase the Nighthawks’ lead to 37-14 with over eight minutes remaining in the game.

Will Sweirbut intercepted a deflected pass on the Wildcats’ next play at the NFA 38.

Melillo ran for a 30-yard touchdown three plays later to extend Newtown's lead to 44-14.

“You could look at the scoreboard, and I’m happy with that,” Newtown head coach Bob Pattison said. “But we still have to get better because NFA is probably thinking to themselves, ‘man, we had opportunities,’ because they moved the ball. They got first downs. They controlled the clock a little bit, too. We capitalized on those turnovers.”

n.griffen@theday.com