SOUTH HADLEY – An early Greenfield goal ended the South Hadley field hockey team’s run in the Western Massachusetts Class B field hockey tournament.
The third-seeded Green Wave upset the No. 2 Tigers at home 1-0 to book a return trip to the sectional finals. They’ve played for the past five championships against Frontier but will face Smith Academy at 7 p.m. Thursday at Holyoke after the Falcons bested the Redhawks in the other semifinal played Wednesday.
Heather French slammed home a pass in close with 6 minutes, 19 seconds remaining in the first quarter, and that tally stood.
“We all felt like we needed to pick it up because we knew we could get it back,” South Hadley’s April Hurley said. “We just needed to pull ourselves together.”
The Tigers had beaten Greenfield twice, rallying from a goal down in their second meeting. They just struggled to finish the last touch with the crispness necessary to score.
“It was across the goal a couple times, but no one would be on post to tap it in,” Hurley said.
South Hadley forced three saves out of Greenfield keeper Ainslee Flynn. Tigers goalie Kaitlyn Lynes kept out six shots.
“(Going down) certainly adds a little bit more urgency to the game, but we’ve played them before and we’ve been down before. We’re a a strong comeback team,” South Hadley coach Tara Cole said. “It’s hard and it hurts and it stings, but we’ll take some days to compose ourselves and get ready for the state tournament.”
South Hadley is the No. 15 team in the latest statewide Division 4 rankings. Though the state tournament lies ahead, the hurt of losing a chance to play for a Western Mass. title remained. Some Tigers left the postgame huddle with tears in their eyes as the Green Wave celebrated on the other side of the field with their fans.
“We still wanted it a lot,” Hurley said. “We wanted to fight hard for it.”
Kyle Grabowski can be reached at kgrabowski@gazettenet.com. Follow him on Twitter @kylegrbwsk.