(NOTE: This is Part 3 of Green Season: Inside the 2000 Greenfield basketball season.)
Through four games, the Greenfield High School boys’ basketball team was perfect.
But as the calendar flipped to the year 2000, the biggest challenge on the schedule was waiting.
GAME 5 (Jan. 4, 2000): Cathedral 80, Greenfield 65
Cathedral High School came to Nichols Gymnasium for a Jan. 4 showdown, and if the Green Wave were looking to make an early-season statement, this was the opportunity. The Panthers were a Division I powerhouse, winning Western Mass. titles in 1997 and 1998. The club soundly defeated Greenfield the previous season when the teams met in an independent contest in Springfield.
“We played down there and got beat pretty good the year before, if I remember,” Greenfield coach Scott Thayer said. “So we’re off to a good start and this was kind of the barometer. If you win, this is the game that puts you in the position to have that breakthrough kind of season that you’re looking to have.”
Cathedral boasted a talented roster, which included the likes of point guard Sean Neal (now an assistant coach at St. Bonaventure University) and forward Mike Martin (now the head coach at Brown University).
“It was a challenging prospect,” recalled Thayer. “Even though we were one of the bigger teams in Franklin County, it’s a different beast when you’re playing Division I teams down south. We always stressed the defensive end and rebounding because offensively, we knew we could score enough points. It was always, ‘Can we match the intensity of a Cathedral?’”
A packed house in Greenfield watched as the Panthers held just a 40-37 lead at halftime, but Neal finished with 23 points and Martin followed with 19 to lift the visitors to an 80-65 victory.
“Against presumably the best team in Western Mass., we competed and played hard,” Thayer told the Recorder after the loss. “They did the little things better than we did and it showed.”
Billy Thomas poured in a season-high 26 points in the loss for Greenfield, and through five games, he had amassed 20 3-pointers. Luke Martin went for 13 points and 10 rebounds, while Aaron Clark added 11 points and Deyvehn East tossed in 9.
“It was closer than that, but it gave us the indication, and I can remember saying this to the team back then, that we weren’t as far away as we think we were,” Thayer offered. “You’re going to play teams like this down the road come playoff time and, if we get there, state tournament games. At that point, I don’t think we believed yet. I don’t think we thought we were on par with these teams. Even though we lost, I think that game did a ton for us moving forward.”
GAME 6 (Jan. 7, 2000): Greenfield 67, Northampton 53
If the loss to Cathedral did anything, it seemingly woke up a sleeping giant.
Sitting 4-1 through five games, the Green Wave looked to bounce back with another home independent game against Northampton. Thomas dropped a season-high 29 points, East added 17, and Greenfield returned to the win column with a comfortable victory. While it was an important step back in the right direction, little did folks in Franklin County know that it would be the start of a massive winning streak — a 14-game winning streak, to be exact.
Greenfield wouldn’t lose again for nearly two months.
GAME 7 (Jan. 11, 2000): Greenfield 77, Ludlow 40
GAME 8 (Jan. 15, 2000): Greenfield 67, East Longmeadow 52
Ask people that played sports at Greenfield High School back in the day, and one of the first things mentioned is the level of competition they faced compared to current teams. The 2000 Greenfield basketball team played in the Suburban League, against Division I schools from Hampden County. That made for difficult regular season games and longer bus rides, but the reward would ideally come in postseason contests.
“Those teams were always bigger and better but it gave us a lot of motivation,” Clark said. “We could compete, even though we were a smaller school. The intensity and skill level necessary to play in the Suburban League, it paid off for us in the tournament. When we played against Division 2 schools, they were not used to the speed we had.”
That 2000 season saw Greenfield battling with six other SL teams – Ludlow, East Longmeadow, Minnechaug, Putnam, Chicopee Comp and West Springfield. That would be quite the tall order under today’s standards.
“It was great competition to be put up against every night but that’s kind of all we had known at that point,” said Martin.
The Suburban League opener on the road at Ludlow was anything but competitive. Greenfield rolled out to a 40-17 halftime lead and cruised behind a 20-point night from Martin. Ten of the 11 players who dressed scored, including 10 points from Billy Finn.
Later in the week, following a snowstorm that rescheduled a game against East Longmeadow, Greenfield moved to 7-1 overall and 2-0 in the SL with another double-digit win over the Spartans on a rare Saturday night tilt at Nichols Gymnasium.
“We got after it,” Thayer told the Recorder following the win, which saw Greenfield limit East Longmeadow to just 15 points at halftime. Thomas (19 points), Martin (16) and Clark (17 points, 15 rebounds) had big nights.
As the season closed in on its halfway mark, the Wave were starting to roll. It was the early portion of what turned into a lengthy winning streak, but there was a trap ahead. With games against talented foes strewn about the schedule, the potential for a letdown spot or two awaited in the very near future.
Check back next week for Part 4 of this series.