The Hall High School girls soccer team hosted Glastonbury on Monday night in West Hartford.

Sports reporting is sponsored by Keating Agency Insurance

By Paul Palmer

The Hall girls soccer team dropped a fast-moving game Monday to Glastonbury 2-1 – the Titans’ first loss of the season.

“In the first half we could have had two or three goals, and they didn’t have a shot,” said Hall head coach Scott Ferguson after the game. “We didn’t punish them for their mistakes.”

One of Hall’s good chances came with 6:13 to go in the half when Chloe Lynch cut off a Guardians’ pass and sent the ball up the sideline. Leah Berey took control and she and Paige Keena exchanged passes before the ball found its way to Alex Ackerman who let fly a hard shot that a Glastonbury defender got in front of. With just 1:14 to play, it was Kyra Baun racing in on the visitor’s goal for a through ball, but she was beaten by half a step to the ball by goalie Faith Grunwald who came sprinting off her line.

Glastonbury came into Monday night’s game with a 3-1-4 record while playing a very different schedule, and took control as the whistle for the second half was blown.

Just two minutes in Hall goalie Mabel Cook had to make a full extension save from in close, and the rebound rolled toward the far post. The Guardians’ Zoey Giroux was alone by the post and tapped in the loose ball for the 1-0 lead. Glastonbury was in control for much of the first part of the half, using a combination of long balls over the top and through balls to try and penetrate the Hall defense.

Alexa Reilly bailed out her teammates after they failed to clear a ball and managed to get a foot on the ball to keep it from becoming a 2-on-0 opportunity for Glastonbury.

The Titans began to fight back on offense just after the midway point of the second half. Baun had a good chance from a side ball, but it went wide of the far side of the net.

About seven minutes later it was Baun setting up the tying goal with a beautiful effort down the sideline. Battling a defender for possession, she managed to flick it past her opponent along the touchline and then hit a near-perfect one-time cross into the middle of the box. The ball landed in a group of players and Hall managed a shot that was stopped by a defender, before Ackerman pounced on the ball and tied the game at 1.

“I put Kyra out wide to create space like that,” Ferguson said. Baun’s combination of speed, dribbling skill, and her ability to hit the cross made the move pay off in a game that felt like the Titans were going to lose.

With just over five minutes to go, Glastonbury would pull off the game winner on a combination of passing and a solid one-timer. A long cross from the left side sailed past several players before Giroux – with her back to the goal – sent a perfectly paced, level ball back to teammate Nicolette Grant who one-timed it to Cook’s left side and into the back of the net, setting off an on-field celebration for the visiting team. It was only the fourth goal scored on Cook this season.

That would be all the scoring in the game as Hall lost for the first time this season by a sore of 2-1. “The goals we gave up, we made multiple mistakes,” said Ferguson. “I told them after the game, if we could just eliminate just one of those mistakes, they do not score,” he said.

“We know now that we can play with them, but we just didn’t take our chances especially in the first half,” lamented Ferguson after the game. Hall has little time to think about their first loss, as they next meet 8-0-1 Farmington on Friday. The loss moved Hall from fourth to seventh in the LL rankings, while Farmington is now in fifth place after a 2-1 win over Northwest Catholic on Monday.

Sports notes

The Glastonbury boys soccer team shut out Hall 2-0 on Monday. The loss was the Titans’ third on the season. The win moves Glastonbury into the No. 6 spot in the LL rankings while Hall (5-3-1) slips to 18th.

The Conard Girls soccer team got 18 saves from goalie Evelyn Black as the Red Wolves moved to 6-1-3 on the year with a scoreless tie against Simsbury on Monday.

The Hall/Conard girls ice hockey team has a new head  coach. Jared Cohane – who had a son that played for the Hall Titans and currently has a daughter on the Hall/Conard team – will take over the bench this season. He replaces Paul Stone who had to step down due to his work schedule.

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