Man Down: Hollis Brookline boys lacrosse sprinting down the stretch run

It's been a busy month of May for the Hollis Brookline High School boys lacrosse team, and there's still half of it left to go.

Thanks to a couple of postponements, the Cavaliers have had about half their regular-season schedule crammed into a very small window.

Starting with a win over Merrimack Valley on May 4, the Cavs will end up playing nine games in 15 days. That includes two back-to-backs and only one break of more than a day off, which happened between that first game and a loss to Goffstown on May 7.

But so far during that stretch, HB is 5-1, including Saturday's win over Timberlane. That has also included an overtime win against Goffstown, a very low scoring win over Bow and HB's second win of the year over Windham.

At this point in the season, playing so many games in a short amount of time is something the Cavs prefer.

"They're ready to just play some games," HB coach Mike Soucy said of his players. "We've played teams a second time around, so we don't need to work on a game plan, especially if it was solid the first time around.

"That makes it easier for us. If it’s a new team, we do the best we can and make adjustments on the fly. The most important thing for us is to keep everybody healthy."

This stretch has helped the Cavs go from seventh in the Division II standings two weeks ago to fourth going into Monday's game against Merrimack.

HB's final four games are against teams with a combined record of 8-38, while the other teams atop the standings have plenty of games left against each other. Derryfield still has to play Winnacunnet and Portsmouth; Goffstown still has St. Thomas on its schedule and a trip to face D1 Exeter on the final day of the season; Portsmouth also plays D1 Londonderry.

Come back continues

There a few reasons why the Bedford boys lacrosse team was able to stay in Thursday's game against Bishop Guertin, but the biggest was junior goalie Sean Tierney.

Tierney turned in a 21-save performance, which Bulldogs coach Matt Guerard described as "the greatest game I've seen him play."

Not bad considering Tierney isn't that far removed from a devastating knee injury that ended his football season early last fall.

"He's worked really hard coming off the ACL injury to compensate for the lack of mobility right now," Guerard said. "He saw the ball really well and he did a great job. He was a big reason why we were able to grind it out until the end. When you've got a goalie who is that red hot in a game, you try to ride it and we did."

What will give?

The two teams at the top of the Division III standings will meet in Swanzey, as Laconia (10-0) takes on Monadnock (8-1).

Going into the game, the Sachems have averaged 14.9 goals per game, scoring fewer than 11 just once all season, while the Huskies score 14.4 goals a game, netting less than 10 twice this year.

On the other end, Laconia has allowed more than three goals in a game just twice, and double digits just once, averaging 3.3 goals allowed. Monadnock has given up 5.4 goals per game.