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Youth Team
Members of the Pomfret Senior Youth Lacrosse team. Courtesy photo.
The Pomfret Senior “A” Youth Lacrosse team completed the regular season with an undefeated 6-0-1 record and was seeded third in the top division of the Connecticut Valley Youth Lacrosse League playoffs. The league stretched from Pittsfield, Mass., to Pomfret, with 60 towns in-between.
Pomfret’s quarterfinal matchup was with the one team they did not beat all season: West Hartford. Back on May 7, Pomfret and West Hartford battled to a 7-7 tie. This time around it would be very different. In the first minute of play, Pomfret jumped out to a 3-0 lead and never looked back on their way to a 12-3 victory. It was Evan Cunningham’s strong face-off skills that dominated the action. Evan won the first three face-offs which then resulted in fast-break goals. Nathan Gentile would notch the first one off a Max Paro assist, and then Cunningham would get the next two on his own. West Hartford would get on the board at the five minute mark, but Cunningham would get that one back later in the period to give Pomfret a 4-1 lead at the end of the first quarter.
The second quarter continued to be all Pomfret. The Paro to Gentile combination worked again to start the stanza, and then Paro would notch an unassisted goal to up the score to 6-1. Cunningham would tally his fourth of the day with seconds left on the first half clock off a Paro assist to put Pomfret in a commanding lead.
Key players in the dominate start were long-stick defensemen Lex Bosio, Josh Bernier and Conor Quinn. They played every minute of the first half and kept West Hartford to one goal. Also providing fresh legs at the midfield were Corbin Schneider, Christian Santangini and Cal Wilcox. All three played tenacious defense and cleared the ball flawlessly. Giving the attack some depth was Josh McFadden. Josh’s ball control and hustle provided valuable possession time for the Pomfret squad.
In the second half, West Hartford would score two goals, but Pomfret would real off five of its own: Peyton Durand would get three of those goals with assists going to Tucker Sheehan, Cunningham and Gentile; Cunningham would get and unassisted goal (his fifth of the day) and Ryan Black would get his name in the scoring column off a Cunningham assist. Despite the offensive show, it was Pomfret goalie Carson Hadley who received the game ball today. Hadley only allowed three balls to get behind him and made a dozen stops off a team that had scored seven goals just weeks before.
With the quarterfinal victory, Pomfret would match up in a semifinal game against Westfield. Not having played each other in the regular season, both teams were not sure what to expect. Pomfret would open the scoring early in the first quarter when Tucker Sheehan would find Nathan Gentile on a nice cut to the net. The Pomfret lead was short-lived, though, as Westfield would tally the next three goals before the end of the quarter. The long-stick defense of Lex Bosio, Josh Bernier and Cal Wilcox had trouble keeping up with the speedy Westfield attack, but the team as a whole needed to play better team-defense to take the pressure off goalie Carson Hadley.
In the second quarter, Ryan Black would give Pomfret life when he scored a nice quick-stick goal off a Max Paro assist to bring the score to 2-3. Unfortunately, Pomfret couldn’t contain the Westfield offense, and they scored the next two goals to stretch the lead to 2-5. Peyton Durand would keep Pomfret in the game with a nice goal off a Sheehan assist, but seconds before the half Pomfret would have a breakdown and Westfield would score to take a 6-3 lead.
At halftime, Pomfret’s goal was to contain the Westfield offense and continue to peck away at the deficit. Despite better defense in the third quarter, the offense just couldn’t buy a goal. The Westfield goalie made numerous big saves that stymied much of the Pomfret attempts to score. Evan Cunningham scored Pomfret’s lone goal if the quarter, but it was sandwiched between goals by Westfield. The score going into the last 10 minutes of play was 8-4 in favor of Westfield.
In the last stanza, Pomfret took advantage of some Westfield penalties and finally got its offense on track. Sam Paul would convert on a Sheehan assist to make the score 8-5, but Westfield would counter with one of its own at the six minute mark to create another four-goal deficit for Pomfret. With William Liscomb converting to the attack and Isaiah Price working the transition game a midfield, Pomfret started to make its move to get back in the game. Cunningham would score the next two goals off assists from Sheehan to make the score 7-9 with two minutes left in the game. Pomfret would dominate play in the last two minutes but just couldn’t get the break they needed to mount that come-from-behind win.
Despite the season ending loss to a very talented Westfield team, it was a great season for the 7th and 8th graders that made up the Senior “A” team. They represented our local area well with sportsmanship and fine play throughout the spring season.