Hammond wins draws contest as Avon Grove tops Strath Haven
WEST CHESTER >> Nate Hammond knew from previous encounters with Hunter Mazur Tuesday would be a battle at the X. When Avon Grove needed him most, Hammond came through.
Hammond controlled the X by a narrow margin, but his win and fast-break goal during a three-minute penalty against Avon Grove in the fourth quarter helped tip the balance in the favor of the top-seeded Red Devils in a 13-8 win over No. 5 Strath Haven Tuesday in the District One semifinals at West Chester Henderson.
Avon Grove (18-1) advances to Thursday’s title game to meet No. 3 Upper Dublin. Strath Haven and Springfield will tangle for states seeding in the third-place game.
Against his soon to be rival, Red Devils sophomore Hammond finished the day 13-for-23 at the X, holding Mazur to 9-for-21. But their faceoff forms ran hot and cold. Hammond, a Unites States Naval Academy commit, won nine of 14 draws in the first half, staking his team to an 8-5 lead. He added an assist on one of Bryce Reid’s three tallies at 5:25 of the second quarter, coming seven seconds after Jake Smith’s goal, to make it a three-goal game.
But Mazur, a junior bound for Army, adjusted after halftime, as Hammond coped with breaking in a new stick after his equipment failed him, winning three of four draws.
“He’s a great athlete, and a lot of the time, it was just groundballs,” Hammond said. “No one is winning it clean. It’s just a war on groundballs today. .. I expected it, and it was a good fight today.”
When bench player Kevin Francis was whistled for an illegal stick, a three-minute, nonreleaseable infraction, at 6:31 of the fourth, Haven had a chance to make an 11-6 game more interesting. Jeffrey Conner scored a minute into that penalty.
Bozentka sneaks with the flag down. 9-6 AG pic.twitter.com/PK1Zb4mvmm
— Matthew De George (@sportsdoctormd) May 24, 2016
But Hammond banished any hope of a comeback, winning the ensuing draw and firing home to stretch the edge back to five with 5:20 to play.
“You’ve just got to play through it,” Hammond said. “You can’t let it get into your head. … We were man-down. They were locking on our attack, no one slid to me and I went right to the goal.”
“That’s definitely a missed opportunity,” Haven’s Will Huestis said. “We definitely got shots, we just got unlucky and the next faceoff, they got it. They got the loose ball and that’s rough.”
Doug Jones added a goal with 4:31 left, helping Avon Grove claim the scoring edge on the penalty, 2-1.
Conner scored three goals, but Strath Haven (17-5) couldn’t sustain offense for long stretches. While Avon Grove adeptly toed the line between patience and aggression, the Panthers couldn’t strike that balance. Despite parity in the draws, Haven was outshot 26-10 in the first half. When they recovered in the second, claiming a 36-35 shots edge on the day, backup goalie Andrew Spencer supplied 10 saves.
“It’s definitely tough because we’re a team that likes to push it,” said Huestis, who scored twice. “Sometimes, you’ve got to slow it down. Everyone’s got a problem with that, especially me.”
Sam Mutz found Jake Ross 43 seconds into the second quarter to give Haven its only lead at 3-2, before the Red Devils rattled off four unanswered tallies. Mazur stopped the bleeding with a goal in transition to make it 7-5, but Brendan Harman restored the three-goal margin with a minute left in the half.
