Somers Soccer Earns Surprising Victory Over Avon

While both the Somers and Avon high school boys’ soccer teams are traditional powerhouses, the matchup between the two has always gone in favor of Avon. All that changed on Tuesday.

The Spartans stunned the Falcons with a 4-1 victory in Somers.

Somers coach John Pantuosco has been in Somers for the last 10 years and has never beaten Avon. He said he doesn’t believe the Spartans have ever beaten Avon before.

“It was a great team effort today,” he said. “It was a blast.”

Avon (9-2-1) is a team that is looked up to and it makes the win that much sweeter.

“Avon is tradition,” Pantuosco said. “They are awesome, they are great every year, they are classy, they’re well organized – they’re what every team and every program aspires to be.”

He says his guys are a little different than that.

“We are gritty, tough, tenacious,” Pantuosco said. “They take on the personality of their coach and that’s how we played today. I get fired up and they feed off of that. They play with extreme amounts of passion. But it’s not just passion, it’s skill, knowledge, desire. We have a game plan and when we play they way our game plan is written up, we’re very tough to beat. We’ve been on a roll for the last four or five years where we’re really tough to beat when we play the way we’re supposed to. We are a very strong, physical, athletic team.”

Only a couple minutes into the game, Joe Pantuosco had a bit of a breakaway and put the ball in the back of the net for Somers (8-2).

Avon coach Patrick Mulligan felt that took a little bit out of his team.

“I think that Somers plays a very kick and run style and then because they got the early goal, we panicked instead of settling in and playing soccer,” he said. “I think it empowered them (Somers) and got them fired up a little more to play a little harder because we actually stayed a little composed.”

John Pantuosco agreed that the goal got his team going.

“After we scored the first goal we felt the confidence,” he said. “When we’re confident, we put our chests out and we run.”

Andrew Montano tied the score for the Falcons with just under seven minutes to go in the first half. Two minutes later, Somers went back on top with a goal by Jake Alvaro.

Lorenzo Rolocut added another goal for Somers a few minutes into the second half. Connor O’Grady finished the scoring on a penalty kick with just under 15 minutes remaining in the game.

Don Wittle and Alvaro notched assists for Somers. Max Leopold assisted the Avon goal.

“My best player didn’t score but he played his heart out,” Pantuosco said. “Don was all over the field just making things happen. We don’t care who scores as long as we play as a team. When we do, the results are right there and it’s pretty fun. We have weapons.”

Mulligan said that his team got caught up in Somers’ kick and run style of play instead of playing the way it normally does.

“They took us out of our game and we got caught right up into their style and it totally worked against us,” he said. “Hopefully that’s a lesson learned on our part. Lessons learned. Better today than in November. Games are a test, so what you learn from that you have to apply to the next game.  And we learned a lot today.”

Mulligan wasn’t pleased with the effort of his team today but he did take some positives out of the game.

“I was very pleased to see that we never stopped playing,” he said. “We were still playing the whole game. Drew scored a very nice goal.”

Avon will be looking to turn the page as the Falcons have a tough stretch of games coming up, starting with Canton on Friday.

Somers will look to continue the good fortune when it hosts Stafford on Thursday.