Somers Once Again in Semifinals

As the rain fell, the Somers Spartans did what they do best – win.

No. 4 Somers (15-3) defeated No. 12 Bloomfield 5-2 to advance to the Class S state tournament semifinals for the fourth straight year.

“That’s pretty impressive,” Somers coach John Pantuosco said. “Jake Alvaro, my center mid has been to every one of them. He’s been starting since his freshman year. Today was win number 60 for him. That’s pretty awesome. That’s pretty impressive. He’s the man. The other team can throw whomever they want at him but Jake is just a man amongst boys and he shows it every game.”

It wasn’t an easy battle though.

“I told my guys before that they are going to remember this day the rest of their lives,” Pantuosco said. “The field conditions are going to be nuts – as sloppy as possible – that other team is going to be something like you’ve never seen before – and they were. They were good, they were competitive, aggressive, physical, and edgy. I said, ‘You’ll remember this for the rest of your life. Do you want to remember it with a smile on your face or do you want to remember it with tears in your eyes?’ They came through.”

With just under 25 minutes remaining in the first half, Somers got on the scoreboard when Jake Alvaro scored on a set play.

Thirteen minutes later, Bloomfield put in an unfamiliar position when Fabian Burnett tied the score.

Lorenzo Rolocut put the Spartans back on top with five minutes to go in the half and Somers held the 2-1 lead at the half.

Somers extended the lead with a goal by Luke Alvaro, but only a few minutes later, Burnett scored another goal for Bloomfield (11-7-1).

This was only the third time all season that the Spartans have given up two goals.

“We usually don’t give up a couple goals,” Pantuosco said. “We don’t give up a lot of goals. They were a very, very good team – very dangerous on the offensive end.”

Three minutes after the Bloomfield goal, Nick Elia used his head to give Somers a 4-2 lead.

“We’ve been trying to hit the ball of my big redhead’s head for the last month and he’s had a million chances to score,” Pantuosco said. “He’s had one goal, but today was his biggest goal. It was the one that put us ahead by two. He was in the right place and he hit it perfectly. In my opinion, it was the game-winner. It was a great goal.”

Bloomfield continued to threaten and the Somers defense and goalie Alex Geas were put to the test.

“Alex Geas came out and made a save when it was 4-2 – took one off his chest with about 12 minutes left,” Pantuosco said. “If he doesn’t save that, 4-3, it could have and would have been a different game. The backs played phenomenal today – Connor O’Grady, Joe Pellegrini, Richard Vanasse, Nick Elia, and of course Alex. They played great.”

A goal by Donny Whittle with just under two minutes to play iced the game for the Spartans.

“Once we got the fifth goal, it was all over,” Pantuosco said. “The kids fought. I told them it was going to be a battle and they fought like champions. They played a really, really hard game.”

Somers will now play the winner of No. 1 East Hampton (16-1) versus No. 9 Portland (12-6) on Saturday. That game was postponed on Wednesday and will be played on Thursday at 2 p.m.

The Spartans are familiar with both potential opponents.

“We played Portland in the round of 16 and East Hampton in the round of eight last year,” Pantuosco said. “We beat Portland pretty well but they had a great goalie and the East Hampton game was a battle. I think this would be the third time we’ve met them in the last four years. We’ve won both so hopefully we can win again.”