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HB boys lacrosse coach looks to go out in style

By Staff | Jun 5, 2012

Bob Zimmerman ended his first season as the Hollis Brookline High School varsity boys lacrosse coach with a Division III championship.

The Cavaliers will try Tuesday to give their coach a title in his last season, too.

Zimmerman, who has been a part of the HB program for eight years, including the last five as the head coach, is stepping down at the end of the 2012 season. Win or lose, that will be when the final buzzer sounds at the end of Tuesday’s Division title game between the third-seeded Cavs and No. 4 Pelham. The game is scheduled to start at 7 p.m. at Stellos Stadium.

“I’m looking forward to (Tuesday night) and it would be nice to end it with a championship,” Zimmerman said. “All the guys are looking forward to it.”

There are a lot of similarities between the 2012 Cavs and the group that won the title in 2008. That year’s senior class had played for Zimmerman when he was the junior varsity coach; this year’s seniors also had him as a sub-varsity coach, when Zimmerman and varsity assistant Mike Soucy had to pull double duty, coaching both teams.

The Cavs (15-2) weren’t the favorite in 2008, too, but they beat an undefeated Portsmouth team that they’d lost to by five goals during the regular season. Although HB is the higher seed, it lost to Pelham by five during the regular season, part of a trend that the Cavs hope to reverse.

“The last few times we’ve played (Pelham), whatever reason it is, the boys haven’t played well,” Zimmerman said. “I don’t know why. They weren’t into it, and this year, it was that way. When any team gets that way, it’s hard to get going because you get into panic mode.”

Zimmerman hopes the Cavs got their nerves out of the way in Sunday’s 12-8 win over Plymouth.

“We came out flat and they went up by three,” the coach said. “We called a timeout, refocused, and by halftime, we were in control. This team has faced adversity before. I think we’re peaking at the right time and our confidence is up.”

Pelham has been playing its best lacrosse of the season as well, and the Pythons continued to do so in their 6-3 upset of undefeated Derryfield, the top seed, in the other semifinal.

“They’ve been more aggressive on defense and playing solid on offense,” Zimmerman said of Pelham. “They don’t turn the ball over and they scramble for ground balls.”

The coach believes that, because the teams are evenly matched, ground balls will be the key to the game, and if the Cavs can get most of them, they will be in a good spot.

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