After tough start, Hollis Brookline field hockey looks to finish near the top of D2

Any questions Greg Cochrane might have had about buy-in for the Hollis Brookline High School field hockey were settled on Sunday.

With the Cavaliers heading to the home stretch, including a game the following day against Derryfield, the players reached out to their head coach and made him change his plans.

"We held a special Sunday night practice, that I didn’t call, the players called," Cochrane said. "I had to scramble and get to it. That’s a pretty good place to be as a coach. Instead of me dragging them in, they’re dragging me in. I couldn’t ask for a better group."

That group, which was already coming off the best season for the program in recent memory, is turning in another year to remember. Heading into Thursday's game at Oyster River, HB had won 10 games in a row, eight of them shutouts, including seven straight without allowing a goal.

And even with more than week to go in the regular season, that game against the Bobcats (10-2) could go a long way toward determining who ends up with Division II's No. 2 seed and a first-round bye.

The Cavs don't want to just stop there.

"Definitely not," HB co-captain Ella Marcum said. "We have so much more to offer. I think with the better teams we play, we get better, and I think, the more of challenge it is, the better we play. We’ve got so much more to give."

According to the NHIAA's records, HB has played in just one field hockey championship game - the Class M-S final in 1990, which the Cavs lost to Winnisquam.

If there was another trip to the semifinals between then and last year's run, no one at HB could remember it. Coming off that type of season showed the Cavs that they could get to that level, but also what they needed to do to stay there.

"I explained to them how it’s not going to come easy and you’re going to have a bull’s eye on your back," Cochrane said. "Teams are going to know you’re coming out strong, so you’ve got to come out even stronger.

"We had to be different. We couldn’t be the same team we were last year. We put an emphasis on finding new systems that worked for us, all new corners, new players for those corners. I wouldn’t say overhaul of our approach, but a different looking approach than we played last year."

HB put in the work, but the schedule to start the regular season was a tough one. The Cavs opened the year at John Stark, the defending D2 champs and the team that knocked them out in the final four.

They lost that game, 4-0, and then had a week in between games. HB returned to the field by falling behind Souhegan, 2-0, early before tying the game and forcing overtime, where the Sabers scored in the final minute for a 3-2 win.

"We knew those teams were tougher ones in the division, so we kept our positivity up," HB co-captain Megan Park said. "We kept rolling with the season. We knew we had the rest of the season left and we didn’t want to have those two losses have a negative effect on us, so we kept our positive attitude up."

Despite the two losses, Cochrane could see the positives in both as well, and knew that things would be all right for the Cavs moving forward.

"I knew that first game against Stark was going to be difficult," he said. "There was an intimidation there. They came out way stronger than we thought and we weren’t ready for it. We could have laid down and gave up and that score could have been 10-0. We didn’t do that.

"We knew we had a long stretch of practice and we used every second of that. We honed in on a lot of the things we didn’t do well in that game. We went to work and fixed a lot of broken things. (Souhegan) came out and scored those two goals, and you saw the resilience of our guys, coming back and being able to be in it."

During HB's streak, the number that stands out the most is on the opponent's side of the ledger. Just two goals allowed in those 10 games, with seven shutouts, but the Cavs have also averaged 3.4 goals per game during that stretch.

"We do at well at shutting down those opportunities," Marcum said. "We gave up no corners (Monday against Derryfield). We take pride in that on defense.

"I want to take credit for that on defense, but I think our midfield is doing phenomenal this year. Because of their help and their amount of blocks, especially on free hits, we’ve been able to keep that string of games going."

Communication has been a big factor, according to Park, in the success the Cavs have had this season.

"We trust each other, so when the ball comes down to our end, we have each other’s backs," she said. "We know we can get it right back up the field."

Cochrane sees it as a more defense-focused team, but not just among the players on the back end. It's a mindset that the Cavs have throughout the field of play.

"I think our strength is our ability to play as a group," he said. "You don’t see two guys on the ball, you see the entire field moving to respond to runs or midfield pressure. We’re committed to a full-team defense and we’re going to bring that every single game.

"We have the fitness to do it and we work very hard on our conditioning. I think it’s the team concept of playing team defense. I’m always going to believe in defense first. We believe in our goalie as well, so we can play a wide-open style because we know she has our back. They’re a resilient group, they’re hungry, and they want theirs."