Wahconah Survives Defensive Struggle Against Pittsfield
DALTON, Mass. – One defensive lapse, one pinpoint pass and one strong finish added up to a 1-0 win for the Wahconah girls soccer team against Pittsfield on Thursday night.
Brooke Harrington converted a left footed shot from about 10 yards after taking a through ball from Gianna Heilbroun in the 17th minute, and Wahconah’s defense held the Generals to just four shots on keeper Vivian Higuera in posting her fourth shutout of the season.
Wahconah fired eight shots at Pittsfield keeper Ella Kroboth, but none as dangerous as the one from Harrington, who scored her team-best ninth goal of the season at the end of Heilbroun’s team-best eighth assist.
“Gianna is just a feeder,” Wahconah coach Maggie Rivers said. “She just works so hard the whole time. I mean, she’s got an engine, and she creates moments out of nothing sometimes. And we just kind of let her go.”
Wahconah took advantage of one of the few times that Pittsfield’s defense let an attacker go by in the Grieve Division battle.
“We shifted,” Pittsfield coach Molly West said. “We got beat with our forwards and everybody kind of shifted up, and we lost [Harrington]. She’s a great player, right? I mean, it was a beautiful goal. You’ve got to give her credit for that.
“She took advantage, and we say a lot of times, sometimes soccer is a crazy game, and if you get one opportunity, you’ve got to finish. And she did.”
The Generals have not been giving up a lot of opportunities in recent games.
“The past four games, we’ve given up two goals,” West said. “We scored 14, giving up two. I’m OK with those stats.”
Pittsfield is 3-1 in those four games after starting the season 1-4.
The last loss came at home against unbeaten Mount Greylock, but the turning point came two games earlier, after a 5-0 road loss at Granby, West said.
“After our Granby game, which was tough [because] we kind of imploded on the field, the next day we said, we’ve got to do things differently,” West said. “And we met with the captains, and the captains just took over.
“We said, ‘We’ve got to do things differently. Our standards have to be higher. We’ve got to push each other a little bit more.”
Wahconah, meanwhile, started raising the bar after a disappointing 2-0 opening day loss, going 6-0-1 since. Its defense has allowed just three goals in that seven-game stretch.
“And I think we thought we were there with Greylock [an eventual 1-1 tie last week],” Rivers said. “We had 15 minutes to go [when the Mounties scored]. So that game taught us a lot. We just have to reflect and compose ourselves.
“Even though it was a tie with Greylock, we were better for it today, right? Because we were able to work through it and we were able to come away with a clean sheet. Our defense was super composed. They were clearing balls out of there. PHS was really attacking, but I don’t feel like there was any shot that … Their set pieces were phenomenal. They were putting it right on frame. But I don’t think there was any threat we felt we couldn’t handle.”
Still, Pittsfield had the final chance of the night to get the elusive equalizer when it earned a free kick from deep on the right wing with fewer than two minutes to play. Wahconah ninth-grader Skyla Jolin trapped the ball in the box, and Madison Lee cleared it out of danger.
The win gave Wahconah a season sweep of the Generals and a victory under the lights in front of a raucous crowd.
It also kept Wahconah alive in the division title race if Mount Greylock has a hiccup in its last three league games.
“We feel pretty good,” Wahconah’s Gracey Farley said after the win. “We played great as a team tonight, and I think we pushed through, even though we had so many fouls that we could have fallen apart. We didn’t, and we pushed through, and I’m so proud of my team.
“I think we marked pretty well. Our defense had a really great game tonight, and Viv, our goalie, played so good and had a great shutout.”
Wahconah Monday travels to face Lenox. Pittsfield Saturday morning is home against Chicopee Comprehensive at Kirvin Park.
Photos from this game to come.