PITTSFIELD, Mass. – The Pittsfield High boys soccer team was anything but rusty after a six-day layoff heading into Tuesday’s Division 4 State Tournament opener.
Instead, the third-seeded Generals were dominant from start to finish in an 8-1 win over Bourne to advance to the Sweet 16 and a date against Frontier Regional.
Gustavo De Oliveira scored in the 11th minute and added two more in the first half as Pittsfield jumped out to a 5-0 lead midway through the match.
“In the locker room, the coach told us we should be aggressive,” De Oliveira said. “Because we knew if we played aggressive, we could score in the first five minutes. That’s what we tried to do, and we ended up winning – pressuring, scoring eight goals in the round of 32. We’re waiting for Saturday now, trying to win and keep going to states.”
The Generals (11-5-3) will be back on the Gene Dellea Field turf at BCC on Saturday afternoon to play for a spot in the state quarter-finals.
Kyle Cardoso and Owen Klatka each had two goals and an assist in Tuesday’s win. Amos Ezan set up a pair of goals and Jeremy Adjei and Leonardo Kirian each had an assist.
De Oliveira, who leads the Generals in assists this fall, showed his finishing touch on Tuesday.
“He’s our field general out there in that 10 position, that [central attacking midfielder] position,” Pittsfield coach Ryan Wanek said. “He does a great job of getting his teammates involved. And when you get your teammates involved, a lot of times, they want to get you involved right back.
“Today was Gus’ day. But any day could be someone else’s day.”
Pittsfield has scored 69 goals in its 19 games, averaging 3.6 goals per game. Tuesday was the seventh time the Generals have scored at least five goals in a game.
De Oliveira scored the first goal off a centering pass from the left wing by Adjei. Three minutes later, Cardoso scored with an assist from Klatka. And Seven minutes after that, Adjei set up De Oliveira again to make it a 3-0 game midway through the first half.
In the 33rd minute, De Oliveira went upper 90 for a goal with an assist from Cardoso.
In the waning minutes of the half, De Oliveira’s pressure led to an own goal by a clearly deflated Canalman side.
Thirtieth-seeded Bourne (6-12-2) arrived in Pittsfield less than 24 hours after a double overtime game in the preliminary round that was decided on penalty kicks. The high stress game immediately followed by a three-and-a-half-hour school bus ride was not a recipe for success and, once again, showed the wisdom of the state’s principals and athletic directors in deciding on a
statewide tournament back in 2020.
Wanek said that the potential of the Canalmen facing a fatigue factor led to a tweak in Pittsfield’s approach on Tuesday.
“We changed it up slightly,” Wanek said. “Usually, we don’t press fully the entire game. But today we did. And that was just mainly because they played yesterday in a State game that went double overtime into PKs.
“So, obviously, that can be very draining. We just wanted to give them no hope in the first half and really jump on top of them with pressing.”
Bourne got on the board in the 46th minute when Quinn Moriarty found some space in the middle on a counter and finished to make it 5-1.
But Klatka answered five minutes later for the Generals, putting back a rebound off Canalman keeper Nathan Reynolds (24 saves).
Cardoso scored his second of the game in the 55th minute, and Klatka closed out the scoring with 17 minutes, 10 seconds left to play.
The win sends Pittsfield into a rare meeting against Pioneer Valley power Frontier, a 2022 state semi-finalist and co-champion of the Moriarity division this fall. The 14th-seeded Red Hawks (13-2-4) advanced with a first round overtime win over Nantucket.
“I’m as confident as I can be,” Wanek said. “We’re definitely ready for the next round. We’ll just keep on pushing, one game at a time.”
