Top seeds Stonington, East Lyme advance to ECC field hockey tournament final

Waterford — Montville needed a goal to tie Lyman Memorial on Tuesday, and the ball was spinning in front of the Bulldogs' net with less than two minutes remaining. Spinning, spinning, spinning. The wind had been blowing south throughout the Eastern Connecticut Conference Division II boys' soccer tournament semifinal, which just so happened to be in the direction of the Lyman goal where the ball continued to spin.

Montville couldn't get to it, and Lyman finally cleared and held on for a 2-1 win. Unlucky. “At first, I thought (the ball) might have gone off the wheel (of the goal),” Indians head coach Colin Delaney said. “But it went off the post itself. I think the guys didn't know if it was going to stay on the field or not because at first, it looked like it might go out-of-bounds on the hit because the wind was going in that direction.

“When it came off that front post and started to spin, it caught some guys off guard a little bit . ... We thought it would be one that we could tap in. It just was just kind of behind our guys there.”

It was the third time this season that top-seeded Lyman beat fourth-seeded Montville.

“We all thought that (the ball) was going out,” Bulldogs senior Brandon Sirois said. “We were all in shock for a second. Our defense figured it out (and) cleared it. “We got lucky and got (it) out.” Lyman (15-1-2) will play No. 2 Windham in the final Thursday at Montville (4:30 p.m.). The Whippets downed No. 3 Wheeler 5-1 in the other semifinal.

Sirois assisted on Jack Anderson's goal in the 15th minute of the game. Sirois scored 10 minutes later on an assist from Drew Archer to put Lyman up 2-0.

The Bulldogs had the wind at their backs in the first half. The Indians (135) enjoyed that advantage in the second half, and it helped.

“We gambled with the wind,” Lyman head coach Ryan Fabry said. “I told (the team), ‘we're going to take the wind. You've got to put some on (net) and they did, thank God. So that worked out to our favor. But I've been here too many times (where) the wind comes back in the second half and bites you. … and it worked to (Montville's favor).”

Tyler Velazquez scored in the 58th minute on an assist from Iain Hatchett to cut Montville's deficit to a goal.

“We tried to change our shape a little bit in the last five-to-seven minutes to kind of get more numbers, and it was definitely working for us,' Delaney said. “We had some good opportunities, probably five or six solid opportunities, in those last five minutes where we thought we could get one, and it didn't bounce our way.”

Or spin the right way.

“Oh, jeez, God,” Fabry blurted out when asked about that near-miss.

Montville moves on to the CIAC Class M tournament and will host a first-round game on Tuesday.

“I thought today was a day where it gave us some tools to kind of get ready for an even bigger game next Tuesday,” Delaney said. “I thought maybe in the first half we were not quite as crisp as we had to be, playing the ball a little too slow at times, whereas in the second half, I thought we were a little more on point, getting guys forward faster, finding each other's feet.

“That kind of stuff, if we carry that into Tuesday, then we'll be in a good spot.” n.griffen@theday.com