GREENFIELD — An early touchdown set the tone for what was a dominant showing from the Greenfield football team on Friday night, winning its last game of the regular season 26-0 against Athol.
Kymel Ramsey got the scoring started for the Green Wave (3-5), taking a handoff 54 yards up the middle to the end zone for the first score of the game. This was one of two 50-plus yard touchdown runs from Greenfield, with senior quarterback Gavin Arsenault rushing the ball 57 yards on a keeper to the end zone right before the end of the first half, putting Greenfield up 12-0 heading into the break.
“[I’m feeling] pretty good,” Greenfield head coach Jeff Bengtson said. “We saw what we’ve seen all season, but more consistency. A little better blocking on the line was huge. We kept running the ball, we stuck to that. It was working, so [I’m] glad our line decided to start blocking a little bit.”
The Bears (0-8) had no solution for halting the Green Wave’s ground game, with all four touchdowns scored by the home team coming by way of the rush. On Greenfield’s first drive of the second half, senior Brayden Slauenwhite carried the ball on five of the six plays of the drive, gaining 32 yards on the ground himself. His fifth and final rush of the drive resulted in a 3-yard touchdown, with the ensuing 2-point conversion putting the Green Wave up 20.
Slauenwhite accounted for all of Greenfield’s yards on that drive, with the only other play being an incomplete pass. The offense had prime field position for the start of that drive, starting on Athol’s 32, following an interception from Slauenwhite that he returned for 33 yards.
On the whole, the defense kept the Bears at bay, with the visitors never entering the red zone. In addition to Slauenwhite’s interception, the Green Wave had a multitude of sacks, the final coming on the final play of the game, with Ramsey taking down quarterback Bentley Irene.
“[There was] a lot of good, obviously some stuff to work on,” Bengtson said on the defense. “Flying to the ball [is something] we’ve been trying to preach all year, and they seemed to do it pretty good tonight. A lot of missed tackles still, but they’re young.”
Elliot Holcomb was the fourth touchdown scorer for Greenfield, getting his six in a similar fashion to Slauenwhite. On the three-play drive that came off the back of a failed fourth down attempt from Athol and starting on the visitor’s 35, Holcomb accounted for all 35 yards, with a 19-yard rush, a 13-yard rush and a 3-yard rush up the middle for the touchdown.
“They’ve come together pretty good, this is a pretty tight-knit group of kids, better than we’ve seen in years past,” said Bengtson on how the team has grown throughout the season. “We have so many freshmen that are playing; I don’t know if that helped, in the beginning of the year we didn’t know how that would go. But the seniors, juniors, they took them in as if they were seniors. They’ve gotten pretty tight. Their abilities can always get better, but they’ve certainly grown knowledge-wise and skill-wise as the year’s progressed.”
As this was the final home game of the regular season, Greenfield honored its seven seniors before the start of the game. With the conclusion of the regular season, the Green Wave will wait and see who their opponent in the consolation games will be. Athol currently has one game remaining on the schedule, its Thanksgiving matchup at Mahar Regional, with kickoff set for 10 a.m.
