By Avonlea Cummings
Hometown Weekly Sports Reporter
Spring is upon us and with it comes the eagerly anticipated return of outdoor sports for Westwood High. As of Monday, March 18, the Spring sports teams have kicked off their preseasons and are preparing for a thrilling and challenging season. In this look ahead, we’ll delve into the boys' lacrosse season with head coach Todd Zahurak.
The boys' lacrosse team is picking up right where they left off last year as they have ten seniors rising to follow in the footsteps of their predecessors. Last year, the boys had an outstanding season, closing with a 15-5 record and playing up to the Sweet Sixteen round of the postseason. However, this year is a clean slate for the Wolverines, and the boys will have a quick turnaround time of preseason just before their first home game against Holliston on March 28.
Head coach Todd Zahurak is looking forward to the season ahead and spoke on the fast turnaround time for the guys to get used to being back on the field once again.
“We always start quickly, we're in a very fortunate spot in that we're returning a pretty large group of kids in some significant places. I think that the teaching part of the game of the preseason is going to be minimal,” said Zahurak. “It’s really just getting the kids back up to speed physically, getting their fitness back on point, and getting kids used to playing lacrosse again with each other. A lot of the kids are multi-sport athletes, which I think is fantastic, and strongly encourage them to do so. But you know, every game has its own nuances and just kind of, redefining everybody's role and how to best utilize the players that we have coming back.”
This year, Zahurak has ten rising seniors, four of which are captains. He hopes that these captains will lead by example to the underclassmen after several years of experience at the varsity level.
“I think my senior class starts with our four captains. I have Brendan Varnerin who is a four-year player and a two-year captain. And in my opinion, he's one of the most underrated players in the state; he's very good. He has a chance at making a run at our all-time scoring record, so if things go his way, he can be a very prominent player for us. He's been a significant part of our offense for four years, so having him come back and really be able to kind of be a coach on the field is fantastic for us. So he's one of our returning attackmen, and the other three captains are all midfielders: Ryan Gaffney, Ryan Pezzuto, and Max O’Brien. We have to figure out the best way to utilize those guys and to produce the best overall team, which is going to be a challenge for the coaching staff this year because they all have different strengths. So we’re going to be a really difficult group to game plan against because they have such a variety of skills that we can use however we see fit,” said Zahurak.
