The Warriors entered Friday night’s contest 8-0 before falling to Simsbury at home.

By Marlon Pitter

The Hall boys lacrosse team’s bid for a ninth consecutive win to open the season fell short against Simsbury, 8-6, at home in West Hartford on Friday night.

Max Congdon scored a game-high five points for Hall (three goals, two assists), but head coach Ben von Mayrhauser said the team did not make big plays when they needed to.

“They made more plays than we did,” said von Mayrhauser. “Sometimes it’s just as simple as that. I don’t think it was an effort thing. We played our game; we executed our game plan. Just when the plays were there to be made, we didn’t make them.”

Leading 6-5 entering the fourth quarter, Simsbury (3-5) potted two goals to go up 8-5 with 3:03 to play in the final frame, but Hall continued to attempt a late comeback. Congdon scored with 1:58 remaining, completing his hat trick and drawing the Warriors closer, but the host’s’ chances did not come to fruition in the final minutes.

Entering the second quarter down 2-0, Hall stormed back to tie the game at 2-2 with goals from Congdon and Graham Kennedy in the first two minutes of the period, the latter on the man advantage.

Down 3-2 in the second, Mike DiPietro and Griffin Smith of goals to take a 4-3 lead at the 3:35 mark. Just 13 seconds later, however, Jake Ober (four goals) scored his second goal of the game for Trojans to tie it at 4-4. Skyler Hewes (two goals, one assist) helped Simsbury pulled ahead with 26 seconds remaining to take a 5-4 lead into halftime.

Ober scored his third goal of the contest at the 6:57 mark in the third quarter to push the Trojan lead to 6-4. The Warriors responded less than two minutes later with Congdon’s second goal of the game, bringing the score to 6-5 entering the fourth where their comeback stalled.

With the loss, Hall falls to 8-1 on the year. For von Mayrhauser, the loss to a tough Trojan team comes as a learning experience for his group.

“It’s a little dose of humility,” he said. “We’re not invincible. The thing I love the most about this team is through adversity – and this is the most adversity we’ve seen all year – we’ve stayed together, and we’re just going to move forward. We’re all about what’s next.”

The Warriors will look to rebound against New Milford (6-4) on Monday afternoon amid a three-game homestand, concluding with Glastonbury (6-2) on Thursday.

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