GREENFIELD — For a quarter and a half, Greenfield looked like a team playing its first game of the season. Thanks to David Carey and a late second quarter spurt however, the Green Wave became a team that won its first game of the season.
Carey, who finished with a team-high 18 points, scored 10 points during Greenfield’s 17-2 run to close out the opening half that allowed the hosts to pull away for a decisive 72-31 victory over rival Turners Falls in independent boys basketball contest Monday night at Nichols Gymnasium.
“We had no scrimmages so we’ve only been playing against each other up until tonight,” Greenfield coach Angelo Thomas said. “Once we started to hit some shots and open things up, I knew we’d be fine.”
Turners (0-2), which opened its season on Friday with a loss to Granby in the Pioneer Valley Tip-Off Classic at the Mullins Center, trailed just 19-15 with 4 minutes, 42 seconds remaining in the second quarter against Greenfield on Monday night. The Thunder were buoyed by the play of Logan Addison down low, and the team’s zone defense kept them in it with Greenfield missing outside shots early.
The Green Wave sprung to life from there, however. Brendan Driscoll hit a pair of free throws and Carey drilled the team’s first 3-pointer of the night. He hit another one less than a minute later, and a Henry Zaccara 3-pointer in the final minute of the half capped a 17-2 run to close out the half and give Greenfield a 36-17 advantage.
“Turners is a hard-nosed town and they’ve got a group of hard-nosed kids over there so we knew we had to keep battling,” Thomas said. “They weren’t going to just give us anything.”
That momentum carried into the third quarter, where Greenfield outscored the Thunder by a 19-4 margin in the stanza to take a commanding 55-21 lead. Seven different Green Wave players scored in the third quarter, as Thomas emptied the bench throughout the game to get his mix of veterans and newcomers extended playing time.
“It’s always good to have the first game at home and good to get some younger guys out there playing,” he said.
Avery Jacobs scored all 10 of his points in the first half for the Wave, which led 15-12 after one quarter. The team’s balanced scoring effort also included eight points from Jacob Blanchard in addition to six points apiece from Zaccara and Driscoll.
“We know we have a couple guys we can count on to score this year, but we’re going to have to be a team that makes the extra pass and moves the ball well because if we can do that, we have quite a few guys who can score,” Thomas offered.
Turners’ Levin Prondecki went for 11 points while Brandon Truesdale (nine points) and Addison (seven) were the team’s other top scorers.
Greenfield (1-0) will have its hands full in game No. 2 on Friday night when it tangles with Frontier at Goodnow Gymnasium in South Deerfield (7:30 p.m.).
NOTES: Bear Country 95.3 FM broadcast the game, kicking off another basketball season with Jeff Tirrell on play-by-play and “Bobby C” Campbell providing analysis. … A sizable Greenfield student section was on hand for this one, and the Green Wave faithful stood the entire game. … There aren’t many rivalry games involving Greenfield and Turners Falls anymore, at least at the boys varsity level. The two schools now only directly play each other in basketball, baseball, tennis and golf.