BERNE — There is still some work to do, but, based on Monday’s effort, it will be a better season than last year for the Berne-Knox-Westerlo boys’ soccer team.

The Bulldogs are trying to bounce back from a dismal 2006 campaign and showed good signs in a 4-3 overtime loss to Duanesburg on Monday afternoon in Berne.
"We have to keep working harder," BKW Coach Jim Gillis said after the game. "This team has a lot of possibilities. People have to remember that this team went 1-15-1 last year."

Gillis has a lot of new players on the varsity team. Again, he is faced with not having a junior varsity team as in the past few years. He also has a few seniors who have never played before.
"We have 22 on the team," Gillis said. "We have three seniors that have never played before. We have one that hasn’t played since modified"They are athletes but they have to keep processing and understanding the game."

Tough start

The Bulldogs battled back on Monday after playing a sloppy first half of soccer. They gave up two goals on defensive breakdowns to trail 2-1 at halftime.

The first Duanesburg goal came with about six minutes left in the opening half.

Kyle Boyd scored after getting to a loose ball that was misplayed and placed a good shot in the upper half of the goal to give the Eagles a 1-0 lead.

BKW got the goal back less than two minutes later.

Brazilian exchange student Igor Silva knotted up the game after making some nice moves past a couple of Duanesburg defenders. Silva knocked a shot by Duanesburg goalie Zack Edwards.

Though they were not credited with assists, Keith Cunningham and Greg Mulson helped set up the play with nice passes that got the ball to Silva.

As bad as Duanesburg’s first goal was for BKW, the second one was even worse.

A lack of communication led to a miss clear for the Bulldogs and the Eagles capitalized as Mike Gwiazdowski tallied to give the Eagles the lead again.
"Talking is the simpliest thing in a game to do," Gillis said. "Dave White is a quiet kid and Greg Hannay is a quiet kid. I don’t care what sport it is, to be a good team you have to have communication to help one another."

Frantic finale

The BKW players stepped up their play in the second half and evened the game with 15:18 left in regulation play.

Cunningham scored after getting a ball that came from over the top of the Duanesburg defense. Cunningham got to the ball, and lifted it over Edwards who came out of goal to try and knock the ball away from Cunningham.

BKW took the lead after Edwards was called for a pushing foul in the penalty area.

The Bulldogs were awarded a penalty kick and Silva converted the kick from the eight-meter mark. BKW led, 3-2, with 6:13 left in the second half.

In the final frantic minutes, Duanesburg tied the score.

Nick Shiavone headed the ball into the goal off a corner kick with 1:30 left.

Regulation play ended with the scored tied, 3-3, and overtime was needed to decide the outcome.

The teams played a scoreless 10 minutes in the first overtime period so the game went into a second extra frame.

Matt St. John ended the game and gave Duanesburg the win with a shot from outside the box that went to the far post, past the outstretched hand of Hannay.

Hannay made 20 saves for BKW and Edwards had 11 stops for the Eagles.

The Eagles out-shot the Bulldogs, 32-16, in the contest.

"Growing pains"
"In the first 10 minutes, they were in their offensive zone a lot," Gillis said of Duanesburg. "I felt a couple of times we unraveled out near midfield and we didn’t hit the ball. They came right back after we got back into the game. But we’ve never been in a situation like that in the past couple of years."

Gillis has some young players in the back and that led to a lot of the early mistakes.
"John Tambasco is a sophomore and he’s my stopper," the coach said. "He works hard. Ryan LaBelle is a sophomore and he is also starting. I was playing Brandon Galgay, a freshman, in the back late in the game. Our goalie is a junior. We’re going to have some growing pains."

But Gillis has already seen things his Bulldogs’ have improved.
"We’ve already scored more goals as a team than we did last year," he said. "Igor has helped with that. We need to work on little things like diagonal runs"I’m not unhappy with our work rate. We need to make better decisions."

Monday’s game was the first Western Athletic Conference South Division game for the Bulldogs. They opened the season last Wednesday with a loss to Saratoga Catholic and split two games in the Fort Plain Tournament over the weekend.
"We’re in a game and we won a game the other day," Gillis said. "The Fort Plain game we were not in. We need to go out and compete. We have a win and a loss in overtime. But it’s hard to give up a goal with a minute-and-a-half left."