After failing to win a game during the 2012-13 season, the Wareham/Carver boys ice hockey team has pulled a 180-degree turn to become one of the top rising teams on the South Coast.

This year, under the guidance of the new coach, Rich Valatkevicz, Jr., the team will try to reach the postseason tournament that has so narrowly eluded them the past two seasons.

Valatkevicz has been in the Wareham hockey program for the past seven years, with the last three as an assistant to former head coach Bryan Erikson. Valatkevicz played hockey for Wareham for four years in the 1970s and went on to play at the minor league level.

“I’ve got a lot of knowledge of the game and a lot of experience,” said Valatkevicz, who was named head coach earlier this month.

In addition to experience, Valatkevicz has plenty of enthusiasm, too.

“I’m out there skating as hard as the kids are at practice,” he said. “I want to make sure the kids are having fun and working hard.”

Valatkevicz has seen the way the program has turned around under Erickson and he wants to continue where the former coach left off. Erikson left the program to dedicate more time to starting his own junior team, according to Valatkevicz.

“The program is heading forward. We’ve got a lot of kids very excited about the sport,” Valatkevicz said.

There are seven returning seniors who will lead a team that was a point away from the playoffs two years ago, and plagued by injuries a season ago.

Valatkevicz said a goal for the future of the program is to create a junior varsity program, so that eighth and ninth graders will have an opportunity to gain more ice time and experience before stepping up to varsity.

Looking just at the season ahead, however, the goal remains to reach the postseason tournament. And Valatkevicz wouldn’t want to do it with any other set of players.

“I’ve been here for 40 years,” Valatkevicz said. “It’s always been a goal of mine to be a head coach and nothing could make me happier than being the coach in my hometown.”