Conard hosted Trumbull in West Hartford Saturday morning, and with the win moves to 5-0 on the season.

Sports reporting is sponsored by Keating Agency Insurance

By Paul Palmer

The two halves of Saturday’s boys’ lacrosse game between Conard and Trumbull could not have been any different. The two teams combined for just five goals at the half but exploded for 13 more – seven in the third alone – as the Red Wolves improved to 5-0 with the 10-8 win.

“You want that back and forth,” said Conard head coach Matt Cersosimo. “It should come down to the very end in lacrosse. This was a good game between two good teams.”

The Eagles got on the board first with a pair of goals in the first five minutes. Conard looked a bit tentative at times as both goals came from passes behind the Red Wolves’ net to a cutting player who slipped through the defense. The hosts got their first just over a minute after going down 2-0 when Will Keever carried the ball from left to right across the goal before letting an overhand shot go that found the net.

After surrendering the opening two goals, Conard’s defense settled down with goalie Brayden Mangini standing tall in net making several good saves.

Despite starting the second period with the man advantage, Conard was sloppy at the start, turning the ball over on its first two possessions and then losing it to a check on the third. With just under five minutes having been played, Liam Alver found Keever cutting in front and laid a ball into his mesh and he fired it in to tie things at 2.

“We started a bit slow,” said Alver, but we started to take control after the half. Trumbull is a very good team.”

Trumbull fought back, but again Mangini made a pair of strong saves, and with 3:02 to play Conard won the battle for a ground ball and Alver and Shaffer worked the ball inside the defense with Shaffer scoring the go-ahead goal. Conard struggled mightily in the faceoff circle in the opening half, losing all four draws in the opening quarter alone. “We are still working on that,” said Cersosimo. “We have two guys in there and it is brand new to one of them.”

After two periods, it still was anybody’s game. Trumbull tied things up at 3 at 8:04 when they ran a clear-out play for Reid Peterson who drove in from about 30 yards out and beat Mangini to the low corner. That goal set off a scoring frenzy that saw three goals in 50 seconds, four in 1:22, five in 2:08, and six in a span of 3:48.

Twenty seconds after the Peterson goal, Alver was at it again, this time working a great quick passing play down low that ended with Brady Cersosimo scoring from the left side. The Eagles came right back and tied it 30 seconds later at 4 before taking a 5-4 lead 32 seconds after tying things. Forty-four seconds later it was Conard tying it up on the man advantage on Jordan Lawson’s tally.

Just under two minutes later, Alver and the Red Wolves took advantage of a turnover to take the lead. Trumbull was attempting to clear the ball out of its own zone with goalie Reg Campbell out letting to one of his defenders. Alvers attacked, got the ball, and raced in one-on-one with Campbell and made no mistake.

Trumbull would nearly score again when Tom Capizutto picked up a loose ball on the sideline and he managed to outrace three defenders to the goal. Mangini squared him up and made the huge save with his stick to maintain the lead. With under a minute to play, Nick Katsaros would score the last of the period’s seven goals. Once again, it was Alvers and Conard maintaining a long possession before Alvers found Katsaros singled up. He took the ball, rolled outside then back inside to get around his defender before unleashing a rocket that made it 7-5 with 12:00 to play. “Our guys were doing a lot of dodging and moving in front today,” Alvers said of the team’s offense.

Just under 3:30 into the final period, a heads-up play by Shaffer helped Conrad extend the lead. A Red Wolves’ shot went wide of the cage but Shaffer was right there, caught the errant shot, took a few steps, and snapped a centering pass to Lawson who was right in the middle and he scored.

One minute later and playing a man down, it was Keever starting the scoring play from his own defensive zone. He took a long clearing pass across midfield, and as he closed in on the Trumbull net he found an unmarked Cersosimo in front and the sophomore buried it low past Campbell to make it 9-5.

After a Trumbull timeout, the Eagles cut the lead to 3 using just three passes from midfield to get the ball to an unmarked player at the side of the net who beat Mangini. With 4:41 to go Jules Capone – who played his usual strong game at both ends of field – picked up a loose ball in his own defensive zone. He head manned a pass to Lawson who found Alvers cutting in front of the goal. Alvers deposited the ball in the back of the net for Conard’s 10th and final goal of the game. Alvers would finish the game with five points – three goals and two assists, Lawson would go 1-1 and Shaffer 1-2, and Katsaros two goals and two assists for four points.

The visitors would score twice more in a 90second span, but that was as close as they would get it as Conard ran out the clock to secure the win.

“That was a battle,” said Keever after the game. “It feels so good to have a full team effort like that. We left it all on the field.”

Both the players and the coaches pointed to two things that helped Conard get the win – energy and the work of Mangini. “I’ve never seen him in a lull,” Keever said of his goalie. “I’ve never played on a team with so much energy.”

Mangini, a junior, is always in motion and always talking to his teammates. “I like to see a lot of shots and I think I do better that way,” Mangini said as he recounted not just the saves, but where the ball had hit him all over his body on Saturday.

Cersosimo’s roster features 11 seniors, but the coach says even beyond that is the leadership he sees coming from those players and others on the team. “Player leadership has been big getting us to 5-0,” he said. “They are taking control and holding everyone to the standards of our program.”

The Red Wolves face two of their biggest challenges of the season next week. They host unbeaten Somers on Tuesday and turn around on Thursday to host a Northwest Catholic squad that is averaging just over 15 goals a game in their 4-0 start to the season.

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