ATHOL — Thursday’s contest between the Athol and Greenfield girls soccer teams was going to go a long way to determining the Bi-County League champion.

The Bears entered with a 9-1 record in league play while the Green Wave were 8-1, and in the final stretch of the season, both teams needed a win to get in the driver’s seat for the league title.

Through 40 minutes, it was clear both teams understood the ramifications as both defenses locked in to keep the opposition from taking the ever-important opening lead, leading to a scoreless first half.

The game opened up in the second half, however. Athol blasted in a goal five minutes in to take that opening lead of the contest. The Bear defense dug in and didn’t allow the relentless pressure from the Wave to result in goal the rest of the way, with Athol walking away with a 1-0 victory at O’Brien Field.

“This was probably by far our most important game of the year,” Bear coach Tim Cleveland said. “We had to play our game. After the first game against Greenfield where I thought we had a big let down in the second half, I set the defense up a bit differently tonight and it worked out for us.”

The win means that an Athol (12-1-1, 10-1) is one game away from clinching the league title outright, only needing a win over Pioneer on Monday to do so. As it stands, the Bears can do no worse than share the league title with Greenfield (11-2, 8-2).

“The girls have worked hard and had a couple of nice years here,” Cleveland said. “It’ll be nice to see if we can grab another title. Pioneer won’t be an easy task. It was a 1-0 game last time. We still have a lot of work ahead of us.”

In a game with so much on the line, Greenfield coach Ben Johnson expected a low scoring affair, knowing the first goal would be crucial.

“Athol is a tough team,” Johnson said. “We knew whoever could strike first would come out on top. We’ve been putting up some numbers but we knew coming in it wasn’t going to be a high scoring game. It was going to be a battle and dog fight through the whole game.”

It was Hannah Cardoso who broke the deadlock in the second half. Maddisyn David sent a pass over to the sophomore, who blasted it in from the edge of the box to give Athol the 1-0 lead.

From there, the Bears defense was able to pack it in to preserve the shutout.

“They did exactly what I wanted them to do,” Cleveland said. “After we scored the goal I sent another defender back there to try to ice a 1-0 win and it worked out.”

While the extra defender was out there, it didn’t stop the Wave from attacking.

Greenfield put multiple shots on goal late, with pressure coming from Elderina Cecunjanin and Tayler Bergeron, but Ava Adams stopped every shot she saw in goal, with the Bear defense doing its best to keep the Green Wave shots from coming in close.

“I turned to my assistant and said it was going to be a game played in the middle two-thirds of the field,” Cleveland said. “It essentially was. We got in front of the net a couple times and had some quality shots although Elderina had a rifle out there. She was shooting from 30-plus which she’s capable of but our keeper is capable of saving those.”

Johnson noted how proud he was of the fight his team showed late.

“We had our open shots and took them,” Johnson said. “We want to keep them firing on goal. They just weren’t going in.”