NORTHAMPTON – Down a goal with less than two minutes remaining in regulation, the Northampton boys lacrosse team got a break.

A Hoosac Valley attacker was sent off for a one-minute penalty after the whistle, giving the Blue Devils a man-advantage and possession with plenty of time to net the equalizer. Unfortunately for Northampton, the Hurricanes’ defense didn’t allow much and when it did, goalie Max Griffin was there to thwart the scoring bid. A pair of flashy saves from Griffin with less than a minute to go helped Hoosac Valley kill the penalty and hold its lead to win, 9-8, on Monday in a Western Massachusetts boys lacrosse heavyweight tilt.

“It’s the little things,” Blue Devils head coach Charlie Edwards said on what he stressed to his team after the game. “We’ve had a lot of success this year getting away with some things and making up for it with skills and things, but today, a couple guys get injured, a couple guys, just with how we were playing, we tired some guys out and playing from behind is a different animal.”

Northampton never led against the Hurricanes, plus were forced to play without Jack Carpenter – who Edwards described as one of the team’s top dodgers – for the entire second half after suffering an injury during the game. Throw in the fact that Hoosac Valley was looking for revenge on Monday since the Blue Devils spoiled their perfect record in the first matchup on April 24, another ‘W’ just wasn’t in the cards for Northampton this time.

“They’re a good pressure team,” Edwards said of the Hurricanes. “They’re more athletic than a lot of the squads we were playing so particularly early, it was tough for us to get momentum. We started crawling back in that third quarter, but they kept going blow for blow and we just weren’t able to match it.”

Hoosac Valley only outscored the Blue Devils in one quarter (2-1, during the second) under the lights at David Wright Field, but it wound up being just enough insurance to secure its 13th victory of the season. 

The Hurricanes were also phenomenal at faceoffs, winning 16 of the 19 draws in total throughout the contest.

Keller Mahoney tickled the twine three times for Northampton as its top goalscorer while Jackson Oravec scored once and assisted on two Blue Devils goals for three points of his own. Eli Reid (goal, assist) was Northampton’s only other multi-point getter and also controlled six loose balls to pace the blue and gold.

Henry Fallon made nine saves in between the pipes for the Blue Devils.

After winning their first 13 games this season, the Blue Devils suddenly find themselves in the teeth of a two-game losing streak. West Springfield handed Northampton its first loss on Saturday, 14-6, followed by Monday’s one-goal defeat. 

The Blue Devils lost four out of their last five games a season ago, however they still have time to stop the bleeding this year before postseason play gets underway. Northampton has two regular season games left against two teams it has already beaten by a combined score of 23-6, so if chalk holds up, the Blue Devils should enter the Western Mass. tournament with some momentum.

“I think we have an idea, but we’re just really starting to understand what it is that we got to do,” Edwards said regarding areas of his team’s game that need to be fixed. “I’m grateful we got a couple practices. The last month we’ve had three games a week so I’m grateful we got three practices this week where we can really put some time into it.”

Should Northampton rattle off two more wins to close out the regular season, it would set a new single-season wins record for Edwards as head coach of the Blue Devils. Edwards won 14 games in 2024 during his first season at Northampton, after coming over from Amherst Regional, where he was in charge for seven seasons beforehand.