Scores from Conard and Hall high school varsity competition, Sept. 30 – Oct. 6, 2015.

By Ronni Newton

The crosstown rivalry has begun!

When Conard meets Hall in any sport, you’re pretty much guaranteed to see a good contest. Now that it’s the mid-point of the regular high school season, teams in sports that play home/away contests are meeting for the first time – and that includes West Hartford’s rival high schools.

Hall headed into Monday night’s boys soccer game with the better record, having won five games to Conard’s four. But records go out the window when kids face athletes who are friendly enemies – kids they know well from years of playing together in youth leagues.

The match’s 0-0 tie was broken with 13:33 left in the first half, when Conard forward, junior Declan O’Brien, booted a penalty kick past Hall goalie, junior Jeremy Rausch. Conard got the PK after a foul was called on Hall for tripping Conard midfielder, senior captain Lucas Busch, in the box.

Conard held on to the 1-0 lead for the rest of the game – a defensive battle that saw Hall come on very strong in the second half but come up empty against a tough Conard defense. Conard senior goalie Patrick Corcoran was credited with six saves, and Conard head coach Adam Linker also credited sweeper and senior captain Sam Newton with a rock-solid performance. “Without him we would not be where we are this year,” Linker said. [Editor’s note and full disclosure: Sam Newton is my son. I ordinarily would purposely avoid including his name in any story unless he scored a goal, but he doesn’t do that because he’s a defender. As coach Linker, who played defense in high school and at UConn said, “Defenders don’t get glory. They just do their job and they go home.”]

“We played with a lot of heart, we played with a lot of energy,” Linker said of the Conard team after the win. He said the team played for 80 minutes straight with a high level energy, focused on disrupting every one of Hall’s plays.

“Today the message was get 11 men behind the ball … we have to defend with 11 as a team here.”

Hall head coach Zeke Seguro said that after the break, his team came back with a lot of effort. “They came back with good effort in the second half. The first half they came out flat, played too slow,” Seguro said.

“We’re very young … they panic a little bit when they trail,” said Seguro. Hall faced the same type of situation last Friday in a loss to Southington on a penalty kick, Seguro said, and also lost that game 1-0.

Cross country is one of those sports where results don’t regularly appear on the CIAC website, so we have to rely on other sources to get details. Hall coach Jeff Billing, who is extremely proud of his young team, said that the Warriors beat Southington  29-29 with a tiebreaker based on the sixth man in a duel meet on Friday, Oct. 2,. “Our top runner was one of our frosh. They went 1-2-4 on us, and then we packed it in with a 17-second gap from our first to sixth runner,” Billing said in an email. Hall also beat Conard 19-43 in the meet.

The Conard girls also faced Southington and Hall on Friday, and beat Hall (15-50) but lost to Southington (34-25). Conard’s Gwen Geisler finished first overall in the meet.

Scores for other sports are listed below and have been compiled from the CIAC website.

Conard football:

Oct. 2 vs. New Britain, won 31-12

Hall football:

Oct. 2 vs. Simsbury, won 35-20

Conard field hockey:

Oct. 2 vs. E.O. Smith, won 8-0

Oct. 6 vs. Glastonbury, lost 1-3

Hall field hockey:

Oct. 1 vs. East Catholic, won 6-3

Oct. 6 vs. Avon, lost 0-3

Conard boys soccer:

Sept. 30 vs. Avon, won 3-2

Oct. 2 vs. Simsbury, lost 1-2

Oct. 5 vs. Hall, won 1-0

Hall boys soccer:

Sept. 30 vs. Farmington, tied 0-0 (OT)

Oct. 2 vs. Southington, lost 0-1

Oct. 5 vs. Conard, lost 0-1

Conard girls soccer:

Oct. 2 vs. Simsbury, won 5-2

Oct. 5 vs. Newington, lost 2-3

Hall girls soccer:

Sept. 30 vs. Farmington, lost 2-5

Oct. 2 vs. Southington, won 6-0

Oct. 5 vs. Bristol Eastern, won 4-1

Conard girls swimming and diving:

No contests to report

Hall girls swimming and diving:

No contests to report

Conard girls volleyball:

Sept. 30 vs. Windsor, won 3-0

Oct. 2 vs. Rockville, won 3-0

Oct. 5 vs. Hall, lost 2-3

Hall girls volleyball:

Oct. 2 vs. Bloomfield, won 3-0

Oct. 5 vs. Conard, won 3-2

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