Guardians Lacrosse Cage Raptors

Senior captain Liam Doyle controls the ball during the Guardians 14-3 victory at RHAM High School on May 1. 

Glastonbury boys lacrosse scored five straight goals in the first half to pull away from RHAM, winning 14-3 last Monday.

Glastonbury senior Parker Wallace scored a game-high four goals, including three in the first half, to propel the Guardians to a third straight victory.

Playing at RHAM High School, the home Raptors battled the Guardians toe-to-toe over the first eight minutes, countering each of Glastonbury’s first two goals. 

GHS head coach Scott Hinchey said RHAM’s multiple defensive sets gave the Guardians trouble early on.  

“[RHAM] definitely competed hard,” stated Hinchey. “They came to play and mixed up a zone, so it took us a while to figure that out. It was just a matter of recognizing the looks and connecting on it.” 

Once Hinchey made adjustments, GHS reeled off the next handful of goals.  

Wallace broke a 2-2 tie with a straight away blast to the lower right corner of the net, beating RHAM goalie Zach Bogdan, with 2:23 left in the opening quarter.

In the closing seconds of the opening quarter, Michael Carroll scored the first of his three goals to beat the buzzer. 

Wallace, Lucas Lavery, and Maxwell Hersom then added goals in the opening four minutes of the second quarter, extending the Guardians lead to five points. 

Glastonbury again beat the buzzer to end the half when Braeden Saunders found the back of the net in the waning moments to give Glastonbury a 9-3 lead at the break.   

“We are a little slow starting, but that is what a zone [defense] does on a wet field,” added Hinchey. “We were working on getting up field and we opened it up a little bit, and I was pretty happy with that.”

As he has done all year, Hinchey deployed a goalie rotation with junior Cayden Infantino protecting the net in the first half and senior Drew Hazard manning the goal in the second half. 

Hinchey said each netminder brings something different to the table.  

“They push each other every day and they both have strengths and depending on the matchup we use that to our advantage,” added Hinchey. “We have two guys with slightly different styles and they have both been pretty consistent for us.” 
Just liked they did between the first and second quarters, Glastonbury again outscored RHAM 5-0 over the final 24 minutes. Carroll scored a pair of goals in the second half, while Saunders added his third and Liam Doyle closed the scoring with a goal at the 8:41 mark of the fourth.

Making the win even more impressive is that fact that Glastonbury was without senior captain Brady Stone, who was injured for the game. Stone is captaining the team with Doyle and defensive standout Ryder Harmon  

Hinchey noted that he has several players that could help captain the ship this season and that he’s needed all of his seniors (eight in total) to help navigate a difficult schedule. 

Two of the team’s losses have been to New Canaan and Cheshire, who are two of the Top-10 ranked teams in the state. The other losses are to Iona Prep, a private school from New York, and Higganum, a top ranked team in Massachusetts.

“Those games are great tests. We need those battles because in a tournament run you are going to play those teams all the time,” Hinchey said of the team’s tough out-of-conference schedule. “We need to put together 48 minutes against those teams. We’ve shown glimpses, but we just have to be more consistent.”

Coming into the week, the Guardians have a record of 6-4 and have a tough road test today (May 11) at Southington, starting at 5:15 p.m. The team will return to GHS for the team’s final two home games of the regular season, welcoming Conard on May 15 (5:00 p.m.) and Wilton on May 17 (6:00 p.m.) 

Hinchey said the team will continue to rely on a “lockdown” defense while they fine tune the up-tempo transition offense he wants to run.
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“These guys enjoy being around each other. They are good teammates; the buy-in is there,” Hinchey added. “They are working hard and we just have to keep on filling our roles and realizing how fast we can be. We have a lot of lacrosse ahead of us, the work is not done.” 
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