Greenfield High School punctuated a strong regular season by knocking off Amherst Regional High School, 3-0, in the season-finale Wednesday morning at Collins-Moylan Arena in Greenfield.
The victory gave the Green Wave a 14-4-2 record as a postseason qualifier for the first time since the 2013-14 season. It also will go down as the regular-season mark by the Wave under the new cooperative, which included the former Turners Falls High School program.
“Finishing 14-4-2 is an amazing season for any high school program, no matter if it’s a long-term program or a new one like ours,” Greenfield coach Adam Bouchard said. “What has really been great to see has been the progression of all our student-athletes. It hasn’t been one player or a few players. Everyone has gotten better.”
Bouchard said that putting together one of the state’s best records this season was a credit to all the new players coming together for the Wave.
“As the puzzle pieces fell into place and everyone sort of got their role, they all went with it,” Bouchard said. “(The coaching staff) thought that was going to be our biggest headache — bringing the co-op together. But kudos go to our captains, our seniors and all the players, because it’s a great way to start our new tenure here.”
Neither Greenfield nor the former Turners Falls team had qualified in recent years, so getting the opportunity to skate in a tourney game will be a new experience for every player on the team.
“The emotions were high after the game,” Bouchard said. “One of the first questions I was asked when I walked into the locker room was, ‘OK, coach, who do we have next?’”
The Senior Day game on Wednesday started at 11 a.m. as players are on February break. Greenfield showed no signs of having to wipe the crusties out of their eyes. The Wave got on the board 11 minutes, 3 seconds into the first period when Evan Simmons fed Doug Hanieski.
Greenfield extended its lead to 2-0 just 2:58 into the second period, this time as Hanieski set up Simmons.
That was plenty of scoring for Greenfield goalie Riley Drew, who continued his stellar play. Greenfield held only a slight (21-19) advantage in shots but Drew stood tall, making several big stops to keep the Wave in front. He finished with a 19-save shutout.
“He ended the regular season really strong,” Bouchard said. “We knew we were going to rely on Riley this year, and having a shutout under his belt heading into playoffs is a huge confidence boost.”
Greenfield put the game out of reach with 7:41 left in the game when Hanieski scored his second of the game on an assist from Bryan Baumann.
The Green Wave will learn its seed in the WMass Division IIIA Hockey Tournament when the seeds are released Saturday. Greenfield should be one of the top two seeds.