PITTSFIELD — There is nothing inherently bad with a draw in soccer. Both teams pick up a point and nobody loses.

There are, however, different kinds of draws.

“It was an interesting test. I think it actually was a really good, hard-fought battle that I thought could have gone either way,” first-year Hampshire Regional coach Brad Miller said, after the Raiders and host Pittsfield battled to a scoreless draw at Kirvin Park Thursday.

“We had our chances. A little disappointing because we weathered a lot of their aggressive pressure and did a really good job with our organization,” Miller said. “We created chances and could have taken a win, but they also are a solid team.”

The Pittsfield side didn’t quite see it the same way. First-year coach Ryan Wanek called it a “bad draw” in his opinion.

“As I just told the boys, it’s always good to keep a clean sheet. You can’t lose a game if you don’t give up a goal,” the first-year PHS coach said. “Our mistakes came in the final third. We just couldn’t find the right pass, the right movement, anything. Their keeper is top, top notch. That makes it tough, too.”

It was a contest where the Generals forced Hampshire goalkeeper Colin Holt to make nine saves.

With the draw, Pittsfield is now 3-0-2, while Hampshire is 3-1-2. It is the second draw in as many games for the Raiders, who battled Agawam to a 2-2 draw. Pittsfield and Agawam played to a 3-3 no-decision. Since then, the Generals knocked off Monument and Westfield.

It was a battle of two of the better teams in the always tough Churchill Division. A year ago, the Raiders beat Pittsfield 9-1 and 2-1.

But Hampshire has a new coach in Miller, who is the former coach at Longmeadow. He also recalled playing at Kirvin in high school.

Pittsfield had 16 shots toward the net to five for Hampshire. PHS goalkeeper Connor Devine wasn’t as busy as Ellis, making only two saves on the day. But the PHS senior did have to come up huge late in the second half.

On a quick counter, midfielder Colin Cahill crossed the ball from deep on the right side into the box in front of Devine. Parker Christy elevated and got his head on the ball. Devine caught the shot before it snuck under the crossbar for what — based on the fact there was under 2 minutes to play — could very easily have been the deciding goal.

For the most part, Pittsfield was the aggressor. The Generals had three corner kicks in the first six minutes of play. While the Generals did not create a serious scoring opportunity on any of the three, it was a sign of things to come.

Pittsfield held a 4-1 advantage in shots on goal in the first half. Some of that, Wanek said, was due to the play of midfielder Amos Ezan. It was Ezan’s job to mark central midfielder Owen Miller. The Hampshire standout had some difficulties orchestrating the offense.

“No. 10 [Miller] is everything for their team. They work through him in the midfield, they find his feet. He’s a phenomenal player. But Amos played his butt off,” the first-year PHS head coach said. “He played him really well and kept him contained for most of the game. It’s a hard player to keep contained for 80 minutes. If you ask me, I think he kept him contained for a good 75 of those 80 minutes.

“We’re proud of Amos tonight.”

The Hampshire coach was looking at the glass as half full.

“A lot of our players that haven’t been seeing much time got to step in and really took the opportunity and ran with it,” Miller said. “Not having our senior captain Brendan [Stevenson] on the field is a big loss for us, so we had to make some adjustments. I think we did a really good job.

“We’ll take the tie. I like the clean sheet against a strong team like this.”