Conard hosted Avon in boys lacrosse Tuesday night in West Hartford, winning 13-4.

Sports reporting is sponsored by Keating Agency Insurance

By Paul Palmer

Senior Luke Shaffer scored four goals and picked up three assists, and teammate Nic Katsaros added a hat trick, to lead the Conard Red Wolves to a 13-4 lacrosse win over Avon Tuesday night in West Hartford.

Shaffer played a strong game, working as one of the central distributors for Conard on offense. “Everybody has bought in this year,” said Shaffer of his team. “We have been locked in this spring.”

Shaffer is one of several Conard lacrosse players who also won back-to-back state ice hockey championships during the winter.

Conard scored early and often in the first as Avon’s offense could not find its rhythm, missing lots of passes and never really getting anything dangerous on goalie Brayden Mangini. The Red Wolves goals in both the first and second came in pairs, or more, as they applied pressure to the Falcons all over the field.

Nic Katsaros would score the first of his two goals to get things going for Conard. With his team in possession of the ball, the senior came in off the bench, accepted a pass, broke in on goal, and fired a rocket high right into the net. Just 1:18 later it would be Shaffer picking up one of his assists as Conard worked the ball around the top of the zone until Shaffer saw teammate Ryan Barnum down low at the side of the cage. His snap pass was handled by the sophomore who scored to make it 2-0 at 7:42 of the first.

Later in the period the hosts would score three more in a 2:40 period of time. Gavin Diamond started things with his goal with 4:45 to play in the first. Working one on one in front of the goal, he beat his defender by starting left, then shooting back to the right. Jules Capone would come up from his defensive spot for the next score for Conard. The senior D likes to use his speed to turn defensive into offensive and this time he charged in and let a shot go from about 20 yards out for the fourth goal just 45 seconds after Diamond.

After killing off a one-minute penalty the Red Wolves were back on attack and it was Shaffer scoring his first goal with an assist from Jackson Bouvier. The goal would be the last of a first quarter that was dominated in all aspects by Conard. Avon was not credited with a shot on goal in the first.

The game was blown open about midway into the second quarter when the Wolves scored twice in a span of :28, and then added two more in :52.

Shaffer started it with his second score of the game. He picked up an assist on the first tally when he found hockey teammate Liam Alver in front as Shaffer came out from behind the cage and made the pass. Twenty-eight seconds later it was Shaffer picking up an Avon turnover and finding Brady Cersosimo all alone in the lane – and the junior made no mistake as he blasted past goalie Sawyer Buzecan.

Katsaros picked up his second goal of the game at 5:30 when he fake a shot, dodged forward, and took his shot as he was getting checked. He hit the ground, but the ball hit the twine and it was 8-0 Conard.

Shaffer got his third goal less than a minute after Katsaros when Capone found him coming on the wing and he let it fly. The score rolled to 10-0 when Ben Walsh went high over the right shoulder of Avon’s goalie. The final goal of the opening half went, appropriately enough, to Shaffer who converted on a Cersosimo assist with just :10 to play to make it 11-0 at intermission.

“Luke is the glue that keeps everyone going,” said his head coach Matt Cersosimo. “He can do anything the team needs him to do and he has a great head on his shoulders.”

“Coach keeps us focused even with a score like that,” Shaffer said. “He tells us to treat it like the game was 0-0.”

In the third the Red Wolves would score twice more as Shaffer made it 12-0 at 4:55, and Katsaros would get his third of the game and the team’s 13th and final goal of the game when he netted his shot from a side angle.

In the fourth quarter, with the large lead, Cersosimo began giving all his players a chance to play, including goalie Matt Russo who replaced Mangini. Mangini was forced to make just two saves on the day. Russo had some good early saves, but with Avon still running many of its starters, the Falcons managed four goals in a five-minute span. Conard outshot Avon 23-7 on the day.

“Every one of these kids deserved to play today,” Cersosimo said. “Everyone works so hard in practice, so when we get an opportunity to get people into a game, we do it.”

The win moved the seventh-ranked Red Wolves (Class L) to 4-1 on the season with two more games this week. Thursday it’s the short trip over to Northwest Catholic and Saturday they host East Lyme. Saturday’s game is the back half of a doubleheader with the Conard girls (3-1) playing their third game of the week when they host Branford at 10 a.m. at McKee Stadium.

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