WEST SPRINGFIELD — It takes a full 45-minute effort to knock off the Greenfield hockey team.
For 40 minutes and 10 seconds of action in Thursday’s Western Mass. Div. 3A championship, Wahconah was in control of the game. A Warrior tally with 11:35 to play in the first period looked to be enough to grant Wahconah the championship, especially with the way goalie Jake Risley was playing.
The Warriors senior stopped the first 34 shots the Green Wave tossed his way. Multiple times in the second period it looked like Greenfield was sure to find the back of the net thanks to odd man opportunities, but each time Risley came up with an acrobatic save to keep his team up by one.
Despite after being deterred time after time, the Wave never lost confidence that they could get one past him.
“On the bench, we kept saying, all we need is one,” Greenfield forward Kyle Barnes said. “Once we got one, we were golden.”
With 1:30 to play in regulation, the Green Wave were forced to pull goalie Riley Drew, giving them a man-up situation to try to put one home.
Bryan Baumann took the faceoff for Greenfield, and neither team was able to control the puck. Four Wahconah players rushed at Baumann, who was able to corral the puck, look up and dish to a wide-open Barnes on the right side of the goal.
With just Risley to beat, Barnes tapped the puck past him to tie the game with 1:25 to go.
“It was a weird bounce off the faceoff,” Baumann said. “The puck was going everywhere and their whole team moved forward and they were stuck on their feet. I turned around and saw (Barnes) backdoor, I slid it over and kept it on the ice. I was pumped to see it in the back of the net.”
Once Baumann won the puck, Barnes knew he simply had to put it on goal to tie it up.
“It was a tie-up off the draw,” Barnes said. “Bryan got it and he slid the perfect pass over to me. I had the easy job, all I had to do was tap it in.”
The goal lifted Greenfield’s spirits, and demoralized the Warriors going into overtime. It didn’t take long for the Green Wave to capitalize on their momentum, as Jacob Bryant found Baumann, and he slipped it five-hole to seal Greenfield’s first championship since 2008.
“It makes us feel like we can do anything,” Barnes said. “The game was ours. We were dominating and we finally got rewarded. There was no doubt in my mind we were winning that game.”
Greenfield has been a comeback team all season long. The team is not short on confidence, knowing it can come back from any deficit it faces.
Against South Hadley in the semifinals, the Green Wave led for most of the game, but the Tigers were able to pull even. The Green Wave kept their never-give-up mentality late, scoring the game-winner in the waning minutes to advance to Thursday’s championship game.
“We come up big in big situations,” Drew said. “As a team, we play so well together and we don’t give up. Even if we’re down one, two goals, we don’t quit.”
After Barnes’ goal in regulation, their was little doubt on the Greenfield bench what was going to happen next.
“It changes a lot mentally,” Barnes said. “We had the confidence back. Once we scored the game-tying goal, we were going to score the game-winner. It starts with the coaching staff pushing us in practice. We knew we had the legs, we knew we had the talent. We got the job done.”
Throughout the third period, the Green Wave kept Wahconah on its heels. The Warriors were content clearing and icing the puck, milking precious seconds off the clock doing so.
With all that happening, Greenfield was still competing on the offensive end, and didn’t stop that mentality even after knotting the game up.
“That goal that late in the game, we were out-skating them,” Baumann said. “It put all the momentum on our bench. We were able to capitalize. They were playing a lot of chip and chase hockey and we kept throwing it down their throat.”
For some teams, having 34 straight shots saved would derail confidence. Each save took life out of the Wave, but not enough to keep them from losing all hope.
“It’s frustrating,” Barnes said. “Hats off to their goalie, he played amazing. He kept them in the game, I have nothing but respect for him. It was frustrating coming back to the bench after he kept robbing us. It felt great to finally get one past him.”
“[Risley] played a great game,” Baumann added. “Until the third period, we were starting to get down on ourselves but we stayed up and good things came from it.”