PITTSFIELD, Mass. -- The Pittsfield High girls soccer team came into Tuesday’s game at Kirvin Park with nothing but pride on the line.
And after falling behind by a goal midway through the second half, the Generals showed just how much pride they have.
Illana Albert and Hannah Dargie scored in the final five minutes of the game to lead Pittsfield to a 2-1 win over Mount Greylock at Kirvin Park.
“For us, this game wasn’t a playoff game,” PHS coach Andy Waluszko said. “It was our last game of the season, but they didn’t stop playing. Even after the [Mount Greylock] goal, they played hard, and they’ve done that all season long. They kept working for 80 minutes.”
For the Mounties, it was a playoff game of sorts.
Mount Greylock came into the last day of the regular season with a record of 8-8-1 and needing at least a tie to finish at .500 or better and qualify for the Western Massachusetts tournament.
For 79 minutes, it looked like the Mounties would do just that, thanks largely to a 15-save performance by senior goalkeeper Rachel Voller.
The Mounties earned a 1-0 lead in the 57th minute when Keiko Smith fired home a shot from the left wing.
They held that lead for more than 18 minutes before the Generals (5-10-3) were awarded a penalty kick after a Mount Greylock handball in the 18.
Albert converted the PK with a low line drive to the left of a diving Voller to make it a 1-1 game with 5:02 on the clock.
In the 77th minute, Mount Greylock dodged a major bullet with Dargie had a try from the middle of the 6 on a cross from Albert, but Voller dove to make the save and keep Mount Greylock on track for the point it needed.
But with less than a minute on the clock, on a play that started with a Julia Eline-Wright throw-in from the left-wing touch line, Dargie scored out of a scramble in which Voller appeared to be knocked down by contact with a Pittsfield attacker.
“That’s about as painful as it gets for an ending,” Mount Greylock coach Tom Ostheimer said. “We were right there, looking at a Western Mass bid.
“But, you know, they put pressure on us all game long. In some respects, we were fortunate to be tied with all the pressure they put on us. You can only ride it out for so long. And they were hungry in the end.”
Of course, so were Ostheimer’s Mounties, who on Saturday overcame deficits of 1-0 and 2-1 to win at Westfield in a must-win situation to make Tuesday’s game matter.
“We came in knowing what we had to do,” Ostheimer said. “It’s been a season where we’ve come up short. I think this was our seventh one-goal loss. But we’ve been playing with some really good soccer teams in Berkshire County and elsewhere.
“I’m incredibly proud of the girls for how we played this year -- getting off to a 1-5 start and then working it back to .500 showed a lot of character on the part of the team. We’ll just have to pick up the pieces and move forward for next year.”
