Boys lacrosse falls to RHAM over spring break

FALLS VILLAGE — Students in the Region One School District were on spring break the week of April 18 to 22, but the Housatonic Valley Regional High School boys lacrosse team wasn’t. On the afternoon of Wednesday, April 20, the team gathered on its home field to face off with a team from Regional 8 high school, which serves the towns of Andover, Hebron and Marlborough (its acronym is RHAM). The game ended badly for the Housy boys, who lost 4-10, bringing their season record to two wins and three losses. The loss may have been due, in part, to the injury of the team’s leading scorer, Andrew Hoffman, in the first 30 seconds of their previous game against Granby Memorial. Hoffman is one of three senior captains this season, along with Tanner Brissett and Jake Paviol. All three plan to play lacrosse in college next year — the largest number of students destined for a college team in the history of Housy lacrosse. Hoffman’s injury and inability to play Wednesday forced the rest of the team to step up their game, according to head coach Mark Goulding. “This is a lesson for them. Our other two senior captains are realizing that they have a new role. They really have to be a threat, instead of letting Andrew be the threat,” he said. “We’re kind of rediscovering who we are as a team right now.” Apart from the three captains, this is a very young team, and also a small one, with only 20 players. About 13 of the players came with little to no experience with lacrosse. Because of the size of the team, many of the inexperienced players are starting in every game and learning basic skills on the field. Of the four goals scored by Housatonic in the April 20 game, three were scored by Brissett, and one was scored by sophomore Justin Forstmann.