PITTSFIELD, Mass. -- Pittsfield High goalkeeper Harrison Rapant will be the first one to give credit to team defense in a win.
But when Friday's Western Massachusetts Division 1 quarter-final was on the line, he did pretty well all on his own.
Rapant stopped a penalty shot in the 61st minute to preserve a 1-0 win for the Generals (10-4-5).
"There's nothing you really need to say except: It's Harrison," Pittsfield coach Andrew Antil said. "He comes through when it counts."
Moments after Quinlan Matthews' header of Louis Higuera's cross broke a scoreless tie, the Generals were whistled for a handball inside the 18.
Sweeper Matt Butera came up to take the penalty try. He shot the ball to Rapant's left, but the senior keeper dove to punch the ball out for a Westfield corner kick.
"I read him," Rapant said. "He kind of came up and swooped around. So you can kind of read where he's gonna go. And then thankfully he didn't put it too close to the corner so I could still reach it."
Pittsfield's defense denied the Bombers on the ensuing corner, just as it did most of the afternoon. Rapant was called on to make seven saves, but for the most part Pittsfield's backs kept Westfield (7-7-5) from getting good looks.
"Shane [Tierney], Quinn [Matthews], Jesse [Kramer], Sean [Rosso], Sam [Heisecke], all of them - they all played out of their minds today," Rapant said. "I only had, probably, two big chances on me. They played fantastic.
"Attack after attack the dealt with all of it, and it was awesome to watch."
And when the time came to come forward and make a play at the other end, Matthews was awesome there as well.
"That's all good fundamentals,good technique, good instinct," Antil said of the game-winning goal. "It's a combination of all those things.
"You get up there, and he knows how to win head balls as you can see all game. So we figure we can find him and see what happens.
"And it worked out."
Pittsfield in the semi-finals faces the winner of Friday night's match between No. 1 Amherst (15-0-3) and No. 8 Renaissance (13-3-2).
