Mount Greylock Boys Win 3rd Straight Regional Crown

PITTSFIELD, Mass. – Kofi Roberts and Evertt Bayliss played off one another and played Mount Greylock to a third straight Western Massachusetts Class C Championship.

 

Bayliss converted an assist from Roberts in the 10th minute Wednesday to give the Mounties a 1-0 lead over Smith Vocational. Thirty seconds later, Bayliss fed Roberts for a goal in an eventual 3-0 win over the Vikings.

 

“He was screaming at me the play before, ‘Pass the ball, pass the ball,’ “ Roberts recalled. “So I finally looked up and squared it, and he was like, ‘There we go.’ … And then he gave me a good ball.”

 

Roberts and Bayliss remained tied for the team lead with 14 goals apiece, and Lucas Burrow notched his second goal as Mount Greylock (11-6-1) won for the fourth time in five games and earned its third shutout victory in the Western Mass tournament.

 

It also completed a second straight girls-boys double in the regional final for the school with the proud soccer tradition.

 

“They would have talked so much trash [if the boys had lost],” senior midfielder Will Apotsos joked after the win.

 

Bayliss came within inches of scoring a second goal in the first half. In the 18th minute, Everett Crowe’s cross from the right wing found Bayliss in the penalty area, and his header went just over the crossbar.

 

Eleven minutes later, another Mount Greylock header was on target.

 

Luca Mellow-Bartels lofted a pass from the right side of the box across the goal for Burrow, who leapt up and directed a shot past a diving Tanner Levin (nine saves) to make it 3-0.

 

Smith Voc generated its share of pressure, but many of its shots were taken from distance, allowing Mount Greylock keeper Ward Bianchi (10 saves) to get good looks and preserve his clean sheet.

 

A long evening of soccer at Berkshire Community College came to a premature end.

 

What was to have been a Class C double-header turned into a triple-header when the Class D boys final between Turners Falls and Monson was moved from Thursday to Wednesday to avoid the rain and to the Berkshires to allow Monson to play both finals at the same site.

 

After the first game, the Class D boys final, ended up in penalty kicks, the schedule got pushed back to where the Mount Greylock and Smith Voc boys kicked off about an hour late.

 

But their match also ended a little early when the Vikings picked up their fifth yellow card and the officials ended the contest with 14 minutes, 21 seconds left in the second half.

 

“It’s unfortunate that it got called early, but a 3-0 win is huge,” Roberts said. “It’s great to end our senior year winning Western Mass.”

 

Speaking of 3-0 wins, that is what Turners Falls’ boys thought they would have with about seven minutes left in their Western Mass final before Monson battled back to force overtime and, eventually, PKs, where Turners Falls prevailed, 4-3.

 

Both Mount Greylock teams were at Gene Dellea Field to watch that Mustang comeback, and the lesson was not lost on first-year boys coach Chris Kapiloff and his players.

 

“We talk all the time about how soccer is a game where, if you’re not playing at 100 percent, you’re playing at about 70 percent,” Kapiloff said. “So you’re either on or you’re off. And we have spent the season training our minds to be on all the time. If you’re on the field … you show to the ball, you call for the ball, you take four or five touches or less, and you distribute the ball.

 

“We’ve been talking about that for a long time, and the boys did a pretty good job of that tonight.”