Drury Boys Face Uphill Battle in Non-Qualifier Bracket

NORTH ADAMS, Mass. – The Amherst boys soccer team earned a 9-0 win over Drury on Wednesday at MCLA in a game that had the Blue Devils’ coach questioning the Pioneer Valley Interscholastic Athletic Conference's scheduling of games for teams that do not qualify for the Western Mass tournaments.

 

Division 2 Amherst (3-10-4) plays in a league with D1 Ludlow, D3 Belchertown and D2 Minnechaug.

 

The Division 5 Blue Devils (5-11-1) entered the day ranked 32nd in the state in their division; the top 32 teams after this week qualify for the state tournament.

 

Teams like Drury and Amherst that do not qualify for their respective Western Mass tourneys (Class A for the Hurricanes, Class C for the Blue Devils) are assigned two games to fill out their regular season slate.

 

Meanwhile, the quarter-finals and semi-finals of the Western Mass tourneys also count as regular season games toward MIAA state tournament rankings; the Western Mass title games are “exemption games” that don’t count in the regular season for state tournament seeding purposes.

 

“There are six Division 5 teams that did not qualify for Western Mass, why couldn’t we have played one of them?” Drury coach John Jacobbe said shortly after Wednesday’s lopsided result.

 

Drury used three keepers in the game. Colin Daly, Parker Rivard and Brayden Canales combined to make 15 saves.

 

The Blue Devils finish the regular season on Friday with a trip to play Division 3 Chicopee.