WEST SPRINGFIELD — After a pair of tough games against Drury High School during the regular season, the Greenfield High School hockey team wasn’t taking anything for granted heading into Tuesday night’s WMass Division 3A quarterfinal hockey game.
True to form, the seventh-seeded Blue Devils came out and hung around the second-seeded Green Wave through a scoreless first period, but a three-goal second period helped propel Greenfield to a 5-2 victory at The Olympia.
Early on, it looked like things were once again going to be tight between the two teams, which battled to a 2-2 draw and a 2-1 Green Wave win in the two regular-season meetings this winter. Drury capitalized on several Green Wave mistakes in the first period for several scoring chances, while Greenfield controlled much of the play but had its scoring chances thwarted by some big saves from Blue Devils’ netminder Corey Callander, who finished the night with 27 saves. Greenfield coach Adam Bouchard said that for many of his players, Tuesday night was not only the first postseason game of the season, but of their careers, and he was happy that his team was able to withstand some early mistakes.
“It’s the first playoff game of the season and we had a couple of freshmen in there getting big minutes,” he began. “We had to get that playoff jitters out of the way. We are lucky to have Riley Drew between the pipes. We knew we made a couple of mistakes but Riley was back there standing tall.”
The second period proved to be the difference-maker, as Greenfield buried three goals to take a 3-0 lead. After outshooting the Blue Devils, 13-5, in the first period but coming up empty, the Green Wave did a better job of crashing the Drury net, which led to each of the first two goals.
“We had a lot of good opportunities in that first period,” Bouchard said. “We had 13 shots and about eight of them came from that slot area. We went in there (during the first intermission) and said, ‘We gotta bury those dirty goals.’ If you look at those first two goals of the second period, the boys responded well. It really set the tone for what we wanted to do the rest of the way.”
It seemed like Drury goalie Corey Callander might have the Green Wave’s number all night after he made a couple of big saves in the first period to keep things scoreless but the Wave was finally able to find an answer for the senior netminder in the second and it came on an ugly goal. Greenfield senior forward Doug Hanieski chased down a loose puck in the corner to the right of the goal and sent the puck toward the front of the net where it bounced off the skate of a Drury defender and ricocheted into the feet of Callander. Kyle Barnes, who was streaking through the slot, poked the puck through Callander’s legs to give the Green Wave a 1-0 lead with 6 minutes, 45 seconds to play in the period.
Despite the lead, Bouchard said things were far from over.
“We always love to score first for sure, but give credit to that Drury team, they played us tough all year long,” he explained. “They had six ties throughout the year, so they were in a lot of games all season. It was definitely nice to score first, but we knew we had a long ways to go.”
Greenfield nearly made it 2-0 just 20 seconds later when Aidan Roche fired a shot that was labeled for the top corner but Callander snared the shot with his glove to keep the deficit at one. Two minutes later, however, the Green Wave found the back of the net again. After cycling the puck around the Drury zone, Greenfield’s Bryan Baumann slid a pass back to the point where Wave captain Mike McGoldrick took a one-timer that made its way through traffic. Callander kicked the low shot out with his right leg, but Hanieski was sitting on the doorstep and buried the rebound into the net with 4:07 to play in the second.
The back-breaker for the Blue Devils came in the final minute of the frame. Baumann, who had several chances earlier in the game, made good on a nice individual effort. The junior picked up a loose puck near center ice and skated over the Drury blue line, where he walked around a defender to break in on Callander. Baumann roofed a wrist shot over Callander’s glove with 53.8 seconds to play to send the Wave into the second intermission with a 3-0 lead.
Greenfield made it 4-0 with 6:42 to play in the third period and again it was Baumann. The play began in the Green Wave defensive zone when McGoldrick sent a pass across the zone to defensive partner Booie Harris and he fired a pass up the middle of the ice to Baumann, who collected it near the Drury blue line where he split the defense and walked in alone on Callander, faking to his backhand before going to the forehand to slide the puck into the net.
Drury made things interesting late. With 2:08 to play, Drury’s Toby Ellingwood sent a shot toward the Green Wave net that Greenfield goalie Riley Drew (23 saves) kicked out but Corbin Rumbolt poked home the rebound to thwart the shutout attempt by the Wave, but the Blue Devils weren’t done. With 46.8 seconds to play, Drury struck again, this time when Omar Uqdah scored on assists from Rumbolt and Ellingwood. Any further thoughts of a comeback were halted when Hanieski fired a shot from his own blue line that rang off the post of the empty Drury net and went in with 29 seconds left for the final score and Greenfield’s first postseason victory since it won the inaugural western Mass. Division 3A title in 2008.
“A big thing the last couple weeks is that coach has been talking about every game is a playoff game,” Hanieski said. “He kept saying, ‘we haven’t won a playoff game, no one in that locker room has won a playoff game.’ It was nice to get that first one out of the way and now we can go bring back a title.”
Greenfield 5 Drury 2
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Drury |
0 |
0 |
2 |
— |
2 |
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Greenfield |
0 |
3 |
2 |
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5 |
Goals: (D) Rumbolt, Uqdah. (G) Barnes, Hanieski 2, B. Baumann 2.
Assists: (D) Ellingwood 2, Rumbolt. (G) Hanieski, McGoldrick 2, B. Baumann, Harris 2.
Shots: Drury 25. Greenfield 32.
Saves: (D) Calander 27. (G) Drew 23.