The Hall boys soccer team hosted Bristol Central on Wednesday night in West Hartford.

Sports reporting is sponsored by Keating Agency Insurance

By Paul Palmer

Liam Deloreto scored twice and goalie Rodrigo Ballesteros posted the clean sheet as the Hall Titans boys soccer team improved to 8-1-3 on the season with a 4-0 win over Bristol Central Wednesday night.

The home standing Titans controlled the early part of the game, keeping the Rams from getting the ball across midfield. Hall’s game plan was obvious – stretch the field, then work the sidelines to move the ball back inside to create opportunities in space.

Grady Doyle and Deloreto were doing a lot of that work along the left side, and it almost paid off early on a Christian Almeida chance that was saved by goalie James Mika. Mika – just a freshman – was under constant pressure, but had some big saves throughout the game.

The Rams had a good chance in the 15th minute when Vince McCann was sent through with a long ball. Hall’s Ben Goldman sprinted back and caught up to McCann from behind, knocking the ball away before he could get off a shot on goal. Moments later, Mika was forced to come up with a big save at the other end when Lincoln Bush got a head on a cross and sent it on goal.

The night’s first goal would belong to Hall when they managed to follow the game plan and work the wings to set up the score. Almeida started it with good control of the ball in the middle of the field. He then found Sean Birmingham racing down the wing and slid a pass through to him. Birmingham hit a perfectly-placed, on- time, left-footed cross into the box that Deloreto headed home from right in front of the goal to make it 1-0.

“Early on we had no width to our game, but when we stretched the field and played it in, we got better,” said Hall head coach Zeke Seguro.

With 8:29 to go in the first half, the Rams nearly evened the game when McCann once again was ahead of the defense, but Ballesteros was quick off his line to secure the loose ball at the left side of the net. The Titans would double their lead just under 35 minutes into the first half when Bush headed a cross of the post. It squirted back into the center of the goal, and Zach Debin was there to poke it home ahead of a Bristol Central defender. They had one final chance with just seconds to go, but Doyle’s try went just past the post.

Hall came out firing again in the second half and 2 minutes in Doyle headed a long throw-in from Aiden Winiarski off the back post.

The goal of the game would come off the foot of Deloreto just over 7 minutes into second-half play. The Rams were called for a foul about 35 yards out and just to the left of center of the goal. The senior captain calmly stepped up and drilled a perfect ball into the upper right-hand corner of the goal, out of the reach of Mika, to make it 3-0.

The Titans looked to have gone up by four 8 minutes later when Bush fired a long shot that hit the underside of the crossbar and appeared to come down across the goal line. Play was continued and as the ball bounced high, it was Deloreto crashing the goal and trying to hit the ball in flight into the net. It too clanked off the crossbar and bounded away to be cleared.

With 17:15 left to play it was Mika once again coming up big for Bristol Central when he made a great right-handed save on Pearse Devaney’s shot. Two minutes later, it would be Almeida finding the back of the net when his high, left-footed shot found room just under the bar to close out the game’s scoring at 4-0.

Even in the win, Seguro said he saw things that his side needs to clean up before the post season. “Sometimes we try to do too much and it’s not what we want. We have got to be firing on all cylinders at this point of the season.”

There are only four regular season games left for Hall before they head into the state tournament. Currently ranked 10th in Class LL, they have a tough game at 8-2-2 Simsbury before facing Northwest Catholic, Lewis Mills, and a season finale with Conard on the 21st.

This Hall team has just four players in the lineup that saw any significant minutes on the pitch a season ago. But Seguro knows that is how things go, and refuses to allow the lack of experience to be an excuse. “I like our growth,” he said. “We have found our identity as an unselfish team that is pulling in the same direction. There is no one individual who is going to win it for us. Their mindset is – we are a team.”

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