The Hall/Conard girls ice hockey team hosted Suffield in West Hartford Thursday night in post-season play.

Sports reporting is sponsored by Keating Agency Insurance

By Paul Palmer

Lila Prayzner scored a rebound goal 2:21 into overtime as Suffield beat Hall/Conard 3-2 in the second round of the Girls Ice Hockey State Tournament Thursday night.

The goal came off a deflected point shot that hit Prayzner then deflected to her teammate who fed it back to Prayzner. She took two whacks at it and her shot deflected off a defender, past goalie Lauren Busi for the win.

“I told the seniors after the game how proud of them I was,” said first year coach Jared Cohane. “They have had great careers and for some of them it meant the end of something they have been doing for half their lives in this building. It’s a bitter pill to swallow.”

Thursday’s meeting was the fourth between the two teams this season, with the last coming six days prior when Hall/Conard won the CCC Title with a 4-0 win at Trinity College. In the earlier two games the road teams won by identical 2-1 scores.

In the CCC title game Hall/Conard took an early lead when Paige Sweeney scored just 1:10 in. Thursday night it was Sweeney who nearly set up teammate Avery Wolfe for a scoring chance right in front just 3:10 into play, but a Wildcats defender managed to get a stick in between Sweeney’s pass from the side of the net.

Four minutes later it looked like Suffield had broken the ice when Lana Piretti slid a puck through a crowd of players in front of goalie Lauren Busi. It was labeled for the low right corner, but somehow Busi got a skate on the puck to keep it from crossing the line.

Suffield kept up the pressure in the first period and at 5:13 Sara Kim let a backhander go that Busi stopped, but Elizabeth Adams pulled the rebound out from a tangle of players and  sent it  back to Kaylyn Ambrosino who deposited a wrister to the far side of the net for the 1-0 lead.

Hall/Conard responded with some good chances, first when Charlotte Reidel cruised in from the point and ripped a shot that Suffield goalie Madelyn Lemieux saved, and then at 2:07 when Quinn Bacon had her backhander and then her rebound follow-up denied by Lemieux. Then with 1:11 to go in the first it was Sweeney once again using her size, strength, and skills to fight her way into the offensive zone with the puck and get off a shot on goal while draped by a back checker, but Lemieux was equal to the task.

It had to be a moment of déjà vu for Suffield when with :10 to go Hall/Conard had a golden chance when the puck was laying in the crease in front of Lemieux but no one could get to it before she covered. Last Friday it was Sweeney scoring her second of the opening period when she beat Lemieux with :10 to play. “They came out and took it to us in that first period,” Cohane said. “Any time you play someone four times in a season the games will be tight.”

Trailing 1-0 after the first 15 minutes, Hall/Conard soon found themselves in a deeper hole when just 1:46 in Grace Pacholski sent a pass to her defensive partner Emily Griggs, who let a low wrist shot go from just inside the zone. Busi made the first stop but Prayzner outmuscled a defender and poked the rebound in to Busi’s far side to make it 2-0.

The two sides went back and forth for most of the period without too many good scoring chances, but Hall/Conard found a burst of energy at the halfway point. Suffield turned the puck over in its own zone while trying to clear it. Bacon picked it off and  sent a quick shot on goal that Lemieux blocked, but freshman Marin Curran was right there to knock the rebound in to tie things at 1. The goal was Curran’s first as a varsity player and her teammates made sure that the puck was saved for her.

Like the first goal, Hall/Conard’s equalizer was started from a face off to Lemieux’s left after an icing. Sweeney won the draw that made its way back to Claire Reidel. She let the shot go that Lemieux stopped but could not control, with Sweeney crashing the net for a rebound a defender moved to cut her off and Bacon came in from the far side, pulled back the puck, and lifted it over a fallen Lemieux to tie things up.

“I like the way we responded in the second,” said Cohane. “And to see Curran get her first varsity goal too.” The two goals came within 80 seconds of each other and were the result of Hall/Conard’s best sequence of play in the entire game.

Charlotte Reidel nearly made it a 3-goal period for the home side with just over two minutes left when she jumped into the play near center ice, outreaching a Suffield player for the puck. She skated into the zone and got off a shot and a rebound, but Lemieux shut the door both times to keep it at 2-2 after two periods.

Both teams played the opening minutes of the third looking more like they wanted to avoid a mistake that could cost them the game rather than trying to get that game winner. Four minutes in Grace Pacholski created a good scoring chance when she looked to be carrying the puck behind the net but instead snapped off a quick shot to Busi’s short side. The sophomore goalie was sharp and hugged the post to make the save, and 3:20 later it was Hall/Conard’s Charlotte Reidel creating a chance when she picked up a loose puck, skated a few strides past the blue line ,and snapped off a powerful wrister to the short side. Lemieux was in position and managed to use her blocker to deflect it to the back glass.

Hall/Conard had to kill off a slashing penalty with 6:19 to go and then with under :30 to  play in regulation, Piretti found herself on the left side of Busi and she tried to redirect a pass into the net, but Busi went with the poke check as she extended her body forward and knocked the puck out of danger.

In regulation Hall/Conard had 31 shots, and Suffield 30. In fact, they each had nine in both the first and third periods, and Hall/Conard outshot the Wildcats 13-12 in the second when the host team scored its two goals.

Teagan Cohane nearly ended it all just :38 into overtime when she took a pass from Mia Longman, stickhandled around two Suffield defenders and got off the backhand as she was getting knocked to the ice. Sweeney was right there looking for a rebound but Lemieux held onto the puck for the faceoff.

Off that next draw Sweeney and Charlotte Reidel had good looks at the net but could not beat Lemieux. Suffield got the puck deep in the Hall/Conard defensive zone and Katelyn Provencher took the puck behind the net and sent it out to Kaylin Ambrosino, whose shot hit Prayzner and deflected over to Provencher ,who managed to get it back to Prayzner for the winning goal at 2:21 of the first overtime.

“In overtime anything can happen,” said Jared Cohane. “We had a golden opportunity with our first shots in overtime.”

Hall/Conard finishes the season at 16-6 and Cohane gave the credit for the turnaround this season to his players. “They committed  to a system based on hard work. They were here for 4 a.m. practices and every kid was on the ice working hard,” he said. “We believed in ourselves. Some players were in new roles and we were going with basically a two-line team. I couldn’t have asked for anything more.”

The sting of the loss and the end of the season was evident as the players headed for the locker room and even as some left the building. The hope is that they can turn that pain into motivation for next season’s run.

Game notes

Hall/Conard will say goodbye to five seniors on this year’s roster:

• Quinn Bacon
• Sidney Aracena
• Maria Mignolelli
• Avery Wolfe
• Lucia George

Eleven underclassman who saw a lot of minutes this season should return next year, giving Hall/Conard a good base to work from. The division of positions runs from Busi in net, to the Reidel sisters on defense, and Teagan Cohane and Paige Sweeney up front who will all carry valuable big game experience and leadership onto the ice next season.

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