breakout - ball takes out too many bricks

Question

I have breakout mostly working, but I can't figure one issue out. Sometimes, my ball will break through multiple bricks. Instead of hitting one and bouncing back towards the bottom, it rips through a bunch.

// move ball along at angle
        move(ball, velocityX, velocityY);

        // bounce off right edge of window
        if (getX(ball) + getWidth(ball) >= getWidth(window))
        {
            velocityX = -velocityX;
        }

        // bounce off left edge of window
        else if (getX(ball) <= 0)
        {
            velocityX = -velocityX;
        }

        // bounce off top edge of window
        else if (getY(ball) <= 0)
        {
            velocityY = -velocityY;
        }
        // hits the bottom edge of window
        else if (getY(ball) + getHeight(ball) >= (getHeight(window) - getHeight(paddle) - 5))
        {
            lives = lives - 1;
            printf("Lives remaining: %i\n",lives);
            setLocation(ball, (WIDTH / 2) - (RADIUS / 2), (HEIGHT / 2) - (RADIUS / 2));
            waitForClick();
        }
        // linger before moving again
        pause(10);

        // detect ball collision
        GObject object = detectCollision(window, ball);
        if (object != NULL)
        {
            // if ball collides with a rectangle
            if (strcmp(getType(object), "GRect") == 0)
            {
                // reverse y velocity if ball collides with paddle
                if (object == paddle)
                {
                    velocityY = -velocityY;
                }
               // remove brick, decrease brick count, increase points count
                else
                {
                    velocityY = -velocityY;
                    removeGWindow(window, object);
                    points = points + 1;
                    updateScoreboard(window, label, points);
                    bricks = bricks - 1;
                }
            }
        }
    }

Answer 1

Probably the ball hits a brick, the velocity on the y-axis gets inverted and the ball goes down, the ball hits another nearby brick, the velocity on the y-axis gets inverted again and the ball goes up again and so on.

I imagine the fix could be a bit difficult to implement but feel free to try! My suggestion is to implement something as follows:

1. if the ball hits a brick
2.     handle brick collision // remove the brick, update the score, etc.
3.     if the brick is hit from its bottom
4.         change the velocity on the y-axis so that the ball moves down
5.     else if the brick is hit from the top
6.         change the velocity on the y-axis so that the ball moves up   

You may also implement the way the ball should bounce off horizontally (on the x-axis).