Hall-Southington Hockey Defeats Conard 5-3

The Hall-Southington co-op hockey team defeated rival Conard High 5-3 in a highly entertaining early season matchup Monday evening at Veterans Memorial Rink.

The game, which featured the two West Hartford public high schools, lived up to its billing, with all eight goals scored in the first two periods, to go along with 14 penalties total.

Conard took a 1-0 lead in the first period, when P.J. Melly deflected in a shot from Grayson Lacroix at the 6:05 mark.

But the Warrior-Knights (2-1) struck back, as Cody Backus brought Hall-Southington level with a goal with 3:32 left in the first. Hall-Southington took the lead just as the horn blew to end the first period when Ethan Schaefer tapped in a pass from Dylan Roach to make it 2-1.

The Warrior-Knights extended their lead to 3-1 when Conor Mitchell scored off a feed from Kyle Cabral with 8:55 remaining in the second period.

But Conard (0-2) clawed a goal back less than a minute later when Jake Reynolds wristed a shot past Hall-Southington goalie Erich Bender to make it 3-2.

The Chieftains tied things up at the 7:07 mark when Jordon Fongemie fought through some argy bargy in front of the net and poked the puck home.

But there was a palpable shift in the momentum of the game when Hall-Southington’s Jarod Florian scored a shorthanded goal with 3:27 left in the second period.

“Giving up the shorthander, it just took everything away,” said Conard head coach Greg Raymer. “It was a huge goal for them. It took the wind right out of our sails.”

The Warrior-Knights added one more when Kevin Cop scored with 2:01 left in the second to make it 5-3.

Conard had an opportunity to get back into the game when it went on a 5-minute power play with 9:15 left in the third period. But it squandered the opportunity by earning two consecutive penalties that gave Hall-Southington a man advantage for a significant portion of Hall’s major penalty.

“That was scary - that was right in the danger zone of the game,” Hall-Southington head coach Brian Cannon said of the 5-minute major. “We have a penalty problem on this team. We had eight penalties in each of our first two games, and we had six tonight. That’s way too many penalties.”

Bender, the Warrior-Knights goalie, had 21 saves, including several big ones that prevented Conard from closing the gap.

“He made a lot of good stops; he worked through a lot of traffic, a lot of scrumming in front of the net,” Cannon said.

Raymer, for his part, credited Hall-Southington for its effort against the Chieftains on Monday.

“Hall outworked us,” Raymer said. “We got beat by a team that wanted it a little bit more than we did today. The won the battle for the puck every time. All the credit goes to Hall. Hall outplayed us hands down. They capitalized on their opportunities. They were very physical.”

Still, Raymer said that he has a young team and that he expects to see the players improve as the year progresses.