South County Wins Masters Soccer League Title in OT

By Ben McDonoughiBerkshires.com Sports
11:39PM / Thursday, July 30, 2026Print Story | Email Story

PITTSFIELD, Mass. — South County needed every bit of resilience Thursday night in the championship game of the Berkshire Masters Soccer Tournament, overcoming a second-half deficit before Caleb Rogers delivered the deciding blow in overtime to lift his side to a 2-1 victory over Barcelona.

The match opened as a defensive battle, with South County weathering consistent pressure from Barcelona. Although Barcelona generated the majority of the first-half scoring chances, South County’s back line remained organized and disciplined, repeatedly turning away dangerous attacks to keep the match scoreless through the opening 45 minutes.

The intensity of the contest increased before halftime as Barcelona was issued both a yellow card and a red card, forcing the side to play the remainder of the match with 10 players.

South County nearly took advantage of the extra man early in the second half when a dangerous opportunity rolled just wide of the post.

Despite playing shorthanded, Barcelona broke the deadlock about 15 minutes into the second half, finding the back of the net to take a 1-0 lead.

South County refused to back down.

The hosts responded later in the half with an equalizer, rewarding their persistence and bringing the match level at 1-1. Barcelona threatened to reclaim the lead on a dangerous free kick, but the South County goalkeeper came through with a key save to keep the score even and send the contest into overtime.

The deciding moment came on a set piece.

Awarded a free kick in overtime, Rogers stepped up and buried the opportunity, curling home the golden goal to complete South County’s comeback and secure the 2-1 victory.

South County’s defensive effort set the tone throughout the evening, frustrating Barcelona’s attack for much of regulation before the offense found the breakthrough when it mattered most.

After battling back from a one-goal deficit and surviving several dangerous chances, South County completed a dramatic comeback to claim its first tournament championship since 2017.

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Karen Allen on Harrison Ford, John Belushi, Steven Spielberg and Williamstown

By Alan PetrucelliSpecial to iBerkshires
12:42PM / Saturday, August 08, 2026

Karen Allen operates her fiber arts and clothing store in Great Barrington when she's not making movies or performing in plays. Below, Allen with Harrison Ford during the shooting of 'Raiders of the Lost Ark.' She's appeared in three of the five Raiders movies.

STOCKBRIDGE, Mass. — Karen Allen wants to talk about the time she went blind.

It was 1979, a year after the release of her first major film, "National Lampoon's Animal House." She and a group of the movie's alum got together on a Sunday afternoon and threw a party, "to play music, hang out and sing." A day later, "the painful symptoms" began. Allen learned that she had contracted keratoconjunctivitis, a dangerous and rare eye disease that created "terrible, terrible, terrible pain. It caused me to go blind for a while ... my eye muscles started to deteriorate. I had to stay in my apartment to make sure — God forbid! — I didn't give it to anyone. It took about two months for me to recover."

That was then. Today, 47 years after the sightless saga, Allen can see clearly. And the choices she had made in her 50-plus year career remain sharply in focus: "The Wanderers," "Cruising," Raiders of the Lost Ark," "Shoot the Moon," "Starman," "Scrooged" — the list is longer than her bit role in Woody Allen's "Manhattan".

And that is just her film work. (Ironically, Allen played a 20-year-old Helen Keller in "Monday After the Miracle," the sequel to "The Miracle Worker." The 1982 drama flopped and played only 16 performances, marking Allen's only Broadway performance.)

This season, Allen returned to the Berkshire Theatre Group's Unicorn Theatre in Abi Morgan's "LoveSong," a play about how love changes people over time. Allen fell in love with the work when she saw it on closing night in Ireland last summer. She sent the script to BTG's Artistic Director and CEO Kate Maguire who "loved it" and green-lighted the project.

"LoveSong" runs through Aug. 29. For tickets or more information, call 413-997-4444 or visit BerkshireTheatreGroup.org.

Next up for Allen: The October release of the film "Other Mommy," "a psychological horror film."

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