GREENFIELD — If the early portion of the season is any indication, the future may coming sooner than later for Greenfield High School.
With underclassmen making key contributions throughout the lineup, the Green Wave continued their strong start with another win on Friday night. Freshman Maverick Ward scored 20 of his game-high 22 points in the second half, taking the keys from junior Mason Meadows’ 20-point first-half performance. The duo lifted Greenfield to a 72-40 victory over Athol in a Hampshire League North boys basketball game at Nichols Gymnasium.
Ward, along with sophomores David Carey (nine points) and Sam Gibson (eight points), are showing that Greenfield can win games while still getting its young players valuable minutes and experience. The Wave improved to 4-0 on the season, 2-0 in the HL North with the win.
“The energy from the younger guys in our lineup… the expectations for those guys is high,” Greenfield coach Angelo Thomas said. “They’re going to get minutes this year. They’re going to mess up at times, it’s not going to be perfect, but we’re going to stick with them and see what we’ve got here.”
It was a breakout game for Ward, the freshman forward who has impressed just four games into his varsity career. He took control offensively in the second half, pouring in 20 of his 22 points — 10 in each of the third and fourth quarters. Ward did it in a variety of ways, scoring in the post in addition to a pair of 3-pointers. Several of those baskets came off assists from Carey, who spun slick passes into tight windows between Athol defenders for easy buckets.
Gibson, seeing his first action of the season, hit a pair of 3-pointers and did a little bit of everything in aiding the Greenfield back court.
Athol (1-3, 0-1) was in the game early, trailing just 11-10 after one quarter with Mark Ferrari and Vinny Gordon pacing the offensive effort on the road.
Greenfield took control of things early in the second period, however, as the hosts stormed out to a 14-0 run that quickly turned the advantage to 25-10 with 2:35 remaining before halftime.
“They switched to zone and we really struggled offensively,” Athol coach Dan Bevis said of the second-quarter run. “We had some open looks, just didn’t convert. We were trying to keep it as close as possible going into the fourth quarter because we had a small bench and ran into some foul trouble.”
Spurring that second-quarter run was the play of Meadows. The junior big man had eight of the team’s points in that 14-0 run, and he finished the first half with all 20 of his points on the night as the hosts took a 33-17 lead into the break. Meadows finished with 15 rebounds on the night, looking like one of the more dominant players in the Hampshire League in the process.
“The sky really could be the limit for him in what he can do in Western Mass. this year,” Thomas said of Meadows. “When he’s involved and engaged, he’s a 30/20 kind of guy. Hopefully, moving forward, we can consistently rely on him night in and night out.”
Noah Pottinger and Bryce King combined for 11 of Athol’s 13 points in the third quarter, as the Raiders trailed 50-30 entering the fourth. The deficit was too big however, and with Ferrari on the bench after fouling out in the third quarter, Greenfield was able to pull away with a 22-10 scoring edge in the final stanza.
“That’s a typical Angelo team — those kids play hard and fast,” Bevis said of Greenfield. “They’ve obviously taken a step forward in my opinion this year. We’ll go back to the drawing board and we’ve got a quick turnaround to get ready to play again (Saturday).”
Athol, which has a game today against rival Mahar (5 p.m.) at Mallet Gymnasium, was paced by Pottinger’s team-high 11 points. King finished with nine points while Gordon and Nick Bousquet tossed in six points apiece.
Greenfield’s Julius Brewington added seven points in the win, and Jake Sak followed with four. The Green Wave look to make it five straight wins to open the season on Monday night when they welcome Franklin Tech for an independent contest.