WILBRAHAM — With two minutes left in the game, the Belchertown girls soccer team’s unbeaten season was still intact after the Orioles battling back to tie Minnechaug.
But the Falcons had other ideas.
A throw-in from the left sideline by Brooke MacDonald went directly to Alyssa Boland, who dribbled the ball into the box.
Boland passed to MacKenzie Howard, who went top shelf on Belchertown goalie Sam Birks and scored the deciding goal in a 3-2 win Thursday.
It was the first loss for the Orioles (8-1-3, 1-1-3 Coombs), who tied Minnechaug (9-3-1, 3-1-1) last month.
“It’s not rough at all, it’s a good loss to have at this point in the season,” said Belchertown coach Chris Mogavero. “It’s good for them to experience a loss, this way they know what it feels like before the tournament.”
The Orioles were down a defender, as junior Lauryn Parent was forced to sit after spraining her ankle Monday against Westfield.
Mogavero played freshman backup Sonia Dugger in her place. He was impressed with how his defense played despite the loss.
“Were my defenders tired? Sure, they played 80 minutes. Did they play their asses off? Sure, they played as hard as they could,” Mogavero said.
After Caleigh O’Brien scored the Falcons second goal 43 seconds into the second half, Belchertown responded.
The Orioles scored two goals to tie the game 2-2. Senior forward Kayla Henry scored both goals, the first coming in the 47th minute on a breakaway.
Belchertown’s Michayla Hosmer lifted the ball over the Minnechaug defense, goalie Tara Zippin attempted a sliding stop of the ball, but Henry lifted it over Zippin’s head to cut Minnechaug’s lead to 2-1.
“She was running out and I knew that if I took another touch on it, she was going to get it because of how fast she was coming out,” Henry said. “I tried to get it off my foot as fast as possible and it just happened to go over.”
Henry’s second goal was also on a breakaway. It started at midfield when she took advantage of a bad pass from O’Brien. Henry went down the field and executed the shot perfectly, beating Zippin on the left side to tie the game in the 64th minute.
Belchertown plays five league games to close out the regular season.
“We get a chance to bounce back Monday against East Longmeadow,” Mogavero said. “We don’t have a lot of time to think about it.”
The game is Belchertown’s annual cancer awareness fundraiser. It starts at 7 p.m.
“The girls will be looking forward to that,” Mogavero said. “Hopefully we can get a bounce-back win and be right where we need to be.”