ATHOL — The final weekend of the Intercounty League football regular season got off to an early start Wednesday night, when Athol and Greenfield decided to reschedule and beat Thursday’s expected bad weather with a chippy and occasionally ill-tempered affair won by the Green Wave, 22-0, at Thomas J. O’Brien Field.
Greenfield finished on the high side of .500 in IL North play at 3-2 and 3-5 overall, while Athol (1-7, 1-4 IL North) fell to its fourth straight shutout loss. Both teams now await their Week 9 assigned-game opponents.
Angel Politis ran for a pair of scores as part of his 26-carry, 211-yard rushing night for the Wave. He also filled in as an impromptu quarterback late in the game, taking “Wildcat” snaps from center, after starter Gavin Arsenault was forced to leave with an apparent right leg injury.
“That’s pretty good. Our goal is to get better and better every week, and we took a step up and got a win this week. We’ll take it,” said Greenfield coach Mike Kuchieski, whose team won for the second time in three weeks. “Athol played really hard, they gave us some issues. They have some really good players and they’re young. They’re gonna be pretty good in a few years.”
Greenfield forced the first of three turnovers on the game’s opening series, when Mark Nero covered a fumble by Athol’s Evan Ke at the Wave’s 33. The teams then exchanged punts before the Wave mounted its first sustained drive, helped along by gains of 23 yards by Arsenault and 10 and 11 yards from Politis, and reached the Athol 20 before Liam Flynn intercepted Arsenault at the Bears’ 5-yard line.
Athol then moved to near midfield before punting and Politis and Greenfield took over at its 15, with the senior carrying four consecutive times for 7, 16, 9 and finally 53 yards on a draw play, good for the lead score of the evening. Arsenault then took a handoff from Politis on a reverse for the two-point conversion run as the Wave went up 8-0 with 4:45 to go before halftime.
The visitors needed only 25 seconds to extend their lead after Kymel Ramsey scooped up a fumble at the Athol 45 and took it the distance. Greenfield’s two-point try was set back by a personal-foul penalty, leading to an incomplete pass and a 14-0 advantage that carried through to intermission.
Greenfield then missed out on more points just before the break, driving from its own 40 down to the Athol 5 before a holding call and a pair of sacks by the Bears turned the Green Wave away.
Neither team could get much going through the third quarter until the Wave’s DaSean Carter intercepted Athol quarterback Oliver Johnson at the Bears’ 22 and returned the pick to the 17. Greenfield cashed in the short field in only four plays, with a 5-yard TD run by Politis and Arsenault’s two-point pass to Ramsey, coming with 10:23 to play.
Athol managed to get into Greenfield territory on only one of its three second-half possessions, as Johnson got together with Ethan Goodwin for three completions of 16, 17 and 10 yards. The Bears reached the Greenfield 24 before a fourth-down incompletion stopped their drive, and the Green Wave managed to kill the final 5:08 of game time. A key 17-yard run by Politis gave Greenfield a first down at its own 42 and lifted him over the 200-yard mark.
Greenfield gained all but five of its 233 total yards on the ground. Athol ended with 126 yards of offense and only four first downs Wednesday, as Johnson completed 6-of-15 passes for 79 yards and Goodwin caught four balls for 63. Ke led the Bears on the
ground with 31 yards in seven tries.