Hall High School hosted Glastonbury in West Hartford on Thursday afternoon.

Sports reporting is sponsored by Keating Agency Insurance

By Paul Palmer

A pair of defensive mistakes, and the loss of a key player due to injury, added up to a 3-1 loss in the Titans’ home opener Thursday.

The defending state champions were out of sorts on defense and it got worse after the loss of senior Sullivan Clancy on a play that should have – but did not – resulted in at least a yellow card for the Glastonbury player involved.

The offensive chances came early between two of the favorites to get to the state championship this season. Just over 6:30 in, senior striker Tim McGuire nearly put the Guardians on the board when his shot ticketed to the far side rolled just wide.

Forty-five seconds later it was Hall’s chance and they did not miss. John Hunt laid off a perfect one-touch pass to teammate Freddy Wright who deposited the ball into the back of the net. The goal came off a long clear deep into Glastonbury’s defensive zone. Goalie Patrick Butler came off his line but got caught in no man’s land by the pass.

Less than 30 seconds later came a controversial no call that resulted in Hall losing one of its senior leaders in Clancy. With Glastonbury on the attack, Clancy played a bouncing ball – slightly bent over – with his head. As he did, a Glastonbury player raised his foot high and caught Clancy with his spikes just below his eye, ripping open his cheek and gashing his nose in the process. Clancy was down for a period of time as the athletic trainer worked to stop the blood flow. He eventually left to seek treatment that most likely will include stitches to close the gash. The rulebook says that a player can receive a card if he: “Commits in a reckless manner a direct free kick offense.” Hall was given a free kick after play resumed 20 minutes later – after the area where Clancy was felled was cleaned.

The loss of Clancy forced Hall coach Zeke Seguro to shift versatile player Fareed Abu Rabia from midfield to the defensive backline. “Once we lost Clancy we lost a lot on offense when I had to move Fareed,” he said.

The loss of  Clancy was just the start of the downfall for the Titans. Less than three minutes later, Glastonbury tied the game on a mistake by Hall goalie Quinn Freeman. The play started innocently enough when a defender squared the ball to the senior  in front of his own goal. Glastonbury was not applying pressure on Freeman when he attempted to clear the ball up the middle of the field, but instead hit it on a line to the Guardians’ Tiago Barreria about 25 yards out, right in the center of the goal. With Freeman off to the left, Barriera calmly took one touch and deposited the ball into the inside of the right-hand side of the empty net.

Glastonbury’s goal tipped the momentum to the visitors’ favor as they picked up their attack and seemed destined to score again. With 27:14 to play in the half they did just that, and once again it came off a defense lapse by Hall. Jack Shaheen, one of eight senior starters for Glastonbury, had possession of the ball about 35 yards out on the left side of the net. Hall seemed to be in the right defensive position as one defender was playing straight up on the ball and another was cutting off the inside line to the goal. As a Glastonbury player began an overlapping run, the defender went from inside to outside, opening up the path to the Hall goal for Shaheen. Two touches later, Shaheen let loose with the outside of his right foot and bent the ball perfectly into the far side of the goal, giving his team the lead at 2-1.

“We made mistakes and gifted the two goals, “ Seguro said after the game. “That really helped them take the momentum in the game.”

Heading into the final 40 minutes of the game it still could have gone either way, but Glastonbury seemed to be more aggressive and to want the ball and the win more than Hall. In winning the state title las year, Hall used its stingy defense to power its offense and allow it to win many low-scoring games.

The second half on Thursday saw both sides dominate periods of action, but neither could get that final ball on goal. Hall was uncharacteristically resorting to having Freeman simply boot the long ball to clear, but there were no strikers there for Hall and the ball either ran out of bounds or was simply turned around by Glastonbury, On offense, Hall’s Diego Lemes and Liam Deloreto, along with Hunt, continued to try and put together combinations to tie the game but could not manage to get anything on goal.

On the backline, Ben Goldstein and  Abu Rabia helped to keep Glastonbury in check but that ended with 15:36 to play in the game when Barriera picked up his second of the game to make it 3-1. Freeman finished the game with three saves and Butler had one at the other end.

“In the second half I thought we had more purpose,” Seguro said after the game. “We’ve been working a lot on defense but losing Sully is a big negative. But this is all a process, and it will take seven or eight games for us to get things right. One game does not define a team or season.”

Hall is now 1-1 and faces Rocky Hill, East Hartford, and then Fairfield Prep all at home next week.

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