CLARENDON, Vt. — Jeff Thomas couldn’t help smiling on Monday night.

Despite the Hartford High boys basketball team’s exit in the VPA Division II tournament, a 70-53 first-round loss to No. 5 seed Mill River, the Hurricanes’ first year coach couldn’t help but admit it.

“Yeah, it makes me hungry,” Thomas said of his return to the playoffs outside Dean W. Houghton Memorial Gymnasium. “We came up short unfortunately. … With a young team, almost everyone’s coming back, we just have to be hungry for next year.”

In Thomas’ first game back on the high school playoff sidelines after his hiatus away from the game, his team struggled to find its footing until it was too late.

On the Canes’ first possession of the game, they were called for a 10-second backcourt violation due to Mill River’s stingy press. Before No. 12 seed Hartford could even find some footing, a deep Mill River 3-pointer made it 8-0 before the six-minute mark, and Thomas was forced to call a timeout.

Out of the timeout, the Canes still struggled.

By the end of the first half, they trailed, 37-16. Mill River’s physical senior guards bruised Hartford with five 3-pointers and dominated the visitors on the offensive glass.

Hartford’s offensive game just couldn’t keep up, and the defense wasn’t keeping the Canes competitive like usual. They also went on a scoreless stretch of almost five minutes in the middle of the second quarter.

“Usually on the road, the other team is going to have that run, but not as big as they had,” Thomas said. “We just didn’t seem to have an answer for it early. We hadn’t been in a tournament game in a while, so maybe a little bit of jitters.”

But out of the half came Hartford, rallying to outscore the hosts, 37-34, in the final two quarters.

The sense or urgency was evident from the beginning, thanks to a 7-2 run to open the third quarter. Brandon Potter had a jumper, Tarin Prior hit a trey, and Dylan Morse had another basket to force Mill River to call a timeout and cut the Canes’ deficit to 14 points.

Hartford continued to cut into the Minutemen lead. Back-to-back layups from Potter and Shea Bean had Mill River’s lead down to 12 points with 2 minutes, 35 seconds remaining in the third quarter.

But four points in the final 50 seconds of the third from Mill River had Hartford’s deficit back up to 15 points.

The closest the Canes got again was with 4:16 to play, when Morse made the front end of a free throw and grabbed his own miss for a layup to bring Hartford within 11 points.

Mill River went 9 of 10 from the free-throw line over the last three minutes of the game to pull away from Hartford.

“We had them definitely on their heels,” Mill River coach Jack Rogers said. “But you have to give them all the credit in the world. … The amount of energy and effort they gave on defense in the second half is a credit to their coach because they could’ve checked out. They were down a bundle, but they made us really uncomfortable in our half-court offense the entire second half.”

Hartford will lose only one senior, Cameron Eldredge, and return 14 players from this season’s team.

Of the 53 points the Canes scored on Monday night, 38 came from their trio of sophomores: Prior, Potter and Seaver.

Prior scored a team-high 19 points and finished with three 3-pointers, creating his own shot multiple times when Mill River’s defense allowed no room. Potter opened up the floor for Hartford with his drives to the hoop and Seaver was able to have a couple putbacks. Junior Shea Bean also added six points.

“That’s really exciting,” said Thomas of what he has coming back next year. “We had a great season I thought. We learned a lot. We lost a lot of close games.”

NOTES: The Canes missed last year’s state tournament. Their last postseason win came in 2013. … Hartford had the word ubuntu printed on the back of its gray long sleeve warmup shirts throughout the season. The Zulu word’s rough translation is “I am because you are.” It was a term Doc Rivers used with his 2007-08 Boston Celtics. … The game started seven minutes after 7 p.m. due to Mill River honoring Colby Fox for throwing over 1,000 yards this past football season. … The Minutemen advance to the D-II quarterfinals to play at North Country on Friday night.