PENACOOK – The ninth-seeded Bow Falcons’ senior striker, Luke Hartshorn, shined bright in the preliminary playoff round against No. 8 Merrimack Valley with a hat-trick to push his team to victory. The defending champion Falcons showed their playoff pedigree and came away with the win, 4-2.

“He’s somebody that we’ve been counting on for a while, and for him to show up in this game and get a hat-trick, that’s a pretty big deal,” said Bow’s head coach, Josh Smith. “It shows the quality of the player that he is, and then also the players around him to get him in those positions too.”

The first half was a gritty and physical back-and-forth between the Falcons (8-6-3) and the Pride (8-8-1). Bow jammed MV in the midfield and it seemed like Bow had the upper hand.

Hartshorn opened the scoring 13 minutes in with a quick counter-attack goal from a turnover and placed the ball out of reach of Pride goalkeeper Jacob Baggett. 

“It feels great, because all season I’ve been injured, and this was like the first game where I was fully back, fully healed, and it was just good to go out there and put out 100%,” said Hartshorn.

Shortly after, the Pride regained their composure and started playing better in transition. Senior midfielder Dawson Lara drew a free kick from 40 yards out that allowed Joey Olivera to send a cross into Carter Lankhorst’s way to equalize the score.

In the last encounter between the two, Merrimack Valley won, 2-0, at home. The two had similar seasons, plagued with injuries and showing sparks of offensive greatness, but were inconsistent defensively which had cost them a few games. This time around, the talented Pride play was stunted by solid defense.

“We were just struggling to get a good touch on the ball, I think might have been the weather conditions,” said MV assistant coach Spencer Nowe. “They’re a better team at playing the ball over the top, so I think it went a little in their favor that way.”

The Falcons came out of the half fiercely and connected incredibly well throughout the field. Senior left winger Ethan Anderson played the ball to Hartshorn who dribbled past two, moving to his right, and slotted his second goal into the top right corner.

Just minutes later, Anderson scored himself after a long-driven through ball from junior defender Jake Reardon played him onside to finish in the bottom corner.

Finally, Hartshorn completed his hat-trick after he drew a penalty from a Pride defense that scrambled to find answers to the Falcons’ attack and had trouble getting the ball forward.

“I wouldn’t score without my team sending me through those nice balls. Ethan Anderson passed it to me for my second goal. I just got it hit it in the top bins,” said Hartshorn. “Beautiful, beautiful pass to win my PK. Came from a beautiful ball from Clayton (Nadzan).”

According to Smith, it was part of his plan not to allow the Valley’s defenders and midfielders to turn their shoulders and get the ball to senior forwards Olivera and Logan Vong, who had been threats for opposing defenses all season.

“They’re really, really dangerous, so we wanted to try and not let them have that time and space so that we can just not worry about chasing balls over the top all day,” said Smith. “We talked about it. It was a focus for us. We also changed formations so that we could attack their back line a little bit more and create more chances.”

Merrimack Valley scored another goal from a set-piece corner late in the second half, but the game was nearly over and the Pride’s heavy legs could not muster two more goals within five minutes. The Pride had lost in the preliminary round last season and were visibly frustrated by the early playoff exit against Bow.

“It is what it is at the end of the day. I think that we did what we could,” said Nowe.

Bow will continue on its quest to defend the Division II boys’ soccer title against the No. 1 Campbell Cougars (14-1-1) in Litchfield on Saturday at 2 p.m.

“They score a lot of goals in bunches. So the key for us is just going to be limiting their chances and then taking ours when we have them,” Smith said. “They have a really dynamic striker (Luke Delia) who scored a lot of goals this year, but if we can keep him under wraps and leverage our attacking strength, we should be able to get the result there.”

Alexander Rapp can be reached at arapp@cmonitor.com