Dufoe a big part of Hollis Brookline boys lacrosse on and off the field

Lacrosse has been a big part of Ben Dufoe's life for a long time.

After starting to play in third grade, the Hollis Brookline High School senior is now a four-year varsity player and a two-time captain for the Cavaliers.

He's signed to continue playing at the next level at Bryant University, making him the first HB boys lacrosse player in almost 20 years to commit to a Division I school.

But before the start of his junior season, Dufoe sat in a preseason meeting feeling like something was wrong. Then-coach Dom St. Laurent stood in front of a room not nearly full of boys lacrosse players and said something none of them wanted to hear.

"We came in to the players meeting with (St. Laurent) and he was like ‘look around, this is all we have this year,'" Dufoe said. "It was awful."

From then until the start of spring practices, Dufoe spent time at school trying to convince classmates to come out for the boys lacrosse team. It wasn't easy, but it went well enough that the Cavs were able to have a season, earning the No. 8 seed in the Division II playoffs before falling to Portsmouth in the quarterfinals.

"For what we had, and how little players we had, I thought we did really well," Dufoe said. "I was just thinking to myself that we’re going to have to be the most conditioned team in the state. With the way we practiced last year, I’d say we were the most conditioned team."

That wasn't as big of a deal for Dufoe, who also played for HB's boys soccer team in the fall. Between the two sports, where he's constantly on either end of the field - he's a two-way midfielder in lacrosse - conditioning has come naturally. And when he wasn't playing either sport, Dufoe would do workouts of 100-yard sprints on his own.

"I use it to my advantage," he said of his endurance. "It's all mental. I feel like I have it engraved in my head that I play better when it’s hot out. I honestly think I do."

Going into this season, Dufoe and his fellow seniors didn't have to roam the halls looking for players, thanks to an influx of freshmen joining the program. That meant instead of recruiting, Dufoe had to help acclimate a bunch of newcomers to high school lacrosse at HB.

And that didn't just include the freshman.

After St. Laurent, who coached the Cavs for three seasons, stepped down in the offseason, Mac Martin was hired to take over the program. While he had coached as an assistant at the college level, Martin was taking over a high school team for the first time at a school with which he wasn't completely familiar.

Having a senior like Dufoe there for his first season has been a huge help to Martin.

"It’s definitely helped me out a lot, especially the first time coaching high school and coming from coaching college kids," Martin said. "Having him be able to help with the day-to-day Hollis Brookline stuff, the stuff that every school has that makes it special, and he knew the ropes. As funny as some of it was, like where the practice pinnies were, there was stuff just to get us going."

St. Laurent was also a first-time varsity head coach when he took over the program before Dufoe's freshman season in 2021. The transition to a new coach has been vastly different.

"It was definitely a lot easier because I knew what to expect going into the season," Dufoe said. "When I was a freshman, I had no clue what I was walking into. This year was a lot easier to acclimate to the new coach.

"I feel like (Martin) came into the season really well. We could tell he knew what he was doing just from meeting him the first time. All the guys trusted him immediately. He’s been pushing us hard and we’re getting results."

Martin attributes a lot of those results to Dufoe, and not just on the field, but for the way the senior has tried to make the adjustment to high school lacrosse easier for his first-year teammates.

"We have about 10 kids who have never played lacrosse before, and a lot of that has to do with Ben and the senior leadership at the school," Martin said. "Hearing them on the bus ride on an away game, and hear Ben talk to a freshman like a life-long friend, and not just a freshman and a senior. That’s what really made this season click for me."

Martin knew of Dufoe, and knew he was committed to Bryant, when he was hired as the new coach. What he didn't know was how such an accomplished senior, who had his plans for the next level already figured out, would take to that kind of change.

"You run everything through your head, the good, the bad, what’s going to happen this year," the coach said. "You can get a little nervous. Second coach, young team, he plays a lot of lacrosse, what’s he going to be like for his senior year?

"He’s here every day, he’s working hard. He’s battling injuries all year. He’s been managing that all year. It could have been that he was checked out. I couldn’t be happier to have him on my team for my first year here."

Dufoe and Martin and the rest of the Cavs will have at least one more game together, as they earned the No. 9 seed in D2 this spring and will play at No. 8 Goffstown at 7 p.m. Thursday in the preliminary round. A win gets HB another shot at top-seeded Portsmouth on Saturday.

"I think we’re a team that the whole league respects," Dufoe said. "They know we’ll put up a fight no matter what and we definitely live up to that. We know that wherever we go for playoffs, the team is scared of who we are and what we bring to the field. Although we’ve had a lot of close losses, we’ve ironed out a lot of the kinks that have caused those losses. I think we could play a lot better moving forward."