Mount Greylock Boys Soccer Reaches Semi-Finals
 Mount Greylock's Nathan Majumder scored three goals on Monday night as the Mounties moved in the WMass semi-finals. |
Majumder on Monday evening scored two of his three goals on direct free kicks to lead the Mounties past Monson, 4-1, and into the Western Massachusetts Division 2 semi-finals.
Majumder scored the game's first goal on a low liner to the left of Monson goalkeeper Ben Murphy. The senior striker's second goal midway through the second half sailed over the Monson wall and under the crossbar to stretch his team's lead to 3-1.
"I just kind of kick them where they're not," Majumder said after the hat trick gave him 30 goals in 18 games this fall.
"It's either over the wall or bend it to the far panel. On the first one, I saw that the goalie thought I was going to go over the wall, so I bent it in there. On the second one, he was way out near the post, so I could just chip it over the wall."
After putting one over the wall, Majumder put the game out of reach with about six minutes left with a goal in the run of play.
He took a through ball from Jake Foehl about 30 yards from the goal and dribbled uup the middle before slipping a shot past Murphy to give the Mounties (16-3-1) their second three-goal victory in two tournament games.
Mount Greylock has lived up to its No. 4 seed and then some, cruising into semis where they will meet top-seeded Belchertown (19-0), a 5-0 winner over Palmer on Monday night.
The Mounties needed one more game than the program usually needs to reach the "final four" of the Western Mass tournament, but Majumder said while its playoff position was a surprise, the team was just happy to still be playing.
"I can't remember a time when we haven't gotten a bye," he said. "I think part of it was there were so many teams who qualified. Usually the four seed, normally, gets a bye.
"We would have liked to be a higher seed, but we're going to play with what we were given. We're not going to argue with what they came up with."
Mount Greylock will get no argument from fifth-seeded Monson (14-3-2) that the Mounties are among elite in the region.
Majumder got the scoring going early with a direct kick from about 21 yards out with just 6 minutes 30 seconds off the clock.
The Mounties carried the play through most of the first half, but Mount Greylock keeper Sean Houston was tested midway through the period on back to back chances by Nick Levesque.
About seven minutes later, Mount Greylock's underclassmen took over.
Sophomore Dan Flynn sent a cross from the right wing for classmate Ian Brink, who made a nifty heel pass to eighth-grader Felix Kershaw. Kershaw dribbled to his left and fired a shot into the far corner of the net to make it 2-0, Greylock.
Monson cut that lead in half in the fifth minute of the second half.
Off a corner kick on the right wing, Liam Christian crossed the ball into the box from Jon Fabrycki, whose header found the back of the goal to make it 2-1.
"I was a little concerned," Mount Greylock coach Blair Dils. "We have a lot of young guys on the field, so we just wanted to make sure we didn't let that get into our heads too much. I thought we then started to possess the ball better and play with a little more urgency.
"We talked at half-time about coming out and not giving up that goal — really trying to put the game to bed."
Instead, the Mounties had to wake up, and they did.
Greylock earned a free kick about 20 yards from the goal with 25 minutes left, and Majumder converted to make it 3-1. And then he closed out the scoring about 19 minutes later.
Next up for Mount Greylock is a Belchertown prorgram that upended the top-seeded Mounties, 1-0 in last year's Western Mass final. Dils said he has had a chance to see this year's Belchertown team and was impressed.
"They're quick," he said. "They don't give you very much space at all. But we're just going to come out and play loose and do the best we can. All the pressure is on them."