Podcast: Mark Puzzangara of Scituate (Mass.) on growing players, ‘D’ and more

Head coach Mark Puzzangara, shown with player Willy Robinson, joined the guys on the "Chasing The Goal" podcast this week.

On this episode of New England Lacrosse Journal’s “Chasing The Goal” podcast, hosts Kyle Devitte and Owen Hart talk with Scituate (Mass.) High School head coach Mark Puzzangara.

Puzzangara has been the head coach at Scituate for over a decade. After playing college lacrosse at UMass Boston, he went on to coach at Milton (Mass.) High School, where he won the MIAA Division 2 title in 2000.

A physical education teacher at Scituate as well as a coach with the Laxachusetts club program, Puzzangara guided the Sailors to the MIAA D-3 title in 2009 and the D-3 title game last spring. He has more than 200 career wins.

Watch the full podcast below on YouTube. It’s also available on all major podcast platforms. If you enjoy it, please leave a rating and a review. Watch more episodes on the Chasing the Goal podcast channel.

Here are some excerpts from the pod.

Kyle Devitte: One of the things that Owen and I have in common is we’re both JV coaches and varsity assistants for our programs, and our programs are very similar in where they are in our state … hierarchy, if you will. You have that youth connection as a teacher. One of the things that that I’m trying to get into, but also I’m kind of wary of getting into, is the youth program. Then I would have a baseline for kids when they come up as freshmen. Do you find that that’s something that you find a lot of value in, or is it just part of what we’re doing? 

Mark Puzzangara: I think it’s kind of something that we’re doing. Every year my coaching staff and my varsity players run a clinic for the seventh- and eighth-grade youth team at Scituate. Basically, we just put them through a typical Scituate High practice. We go through drills from start to finish, so they get an idea of what to expect when they come up here at the high school.

These kids have to have better stick skills when they come in. No. 2, being able to dodge. We really try to have them work on dodging. Down at youth, I tell them, let us worry about the X’s and O’s and formations. If you can teach them the core values, the core principles … if someone’s dodging towards you, clear through, get out of the way. I can then take that and then build it with what we are running at Scituate High School. 

Owen Hart: I’ve watched a lot of your games through either playing or scouting, and I’ve seen a lot of teams take different approaches to how they deal with the defensive wrinkles that you throw at them. I don’t like it when teams just take their two guys, lock off, and say, ‘OK, go stand in the corner. We’ll play 4-on-4 in space.’ And, personally, if you think you have speed advantages on the field, I can understand that. But I just don’t like when teams just concede it. I don’t like when I see guys just kind of standing off on the side and just having them play four-on-four. I mean, it’s just a wrinkle. I don’t understand when teams do it. That’s a weird approach, right?

Mark Puzzangara: As a head coach, if someone wants to do that, and take their best player and go stand at the midfield, great. We’re happy playing 5-on-5; that happened to us quite a few times last year, and I’m sure it’s gonna continue to happen this year with the players that we have. You try not to blink. You just incorporate that player into your offense like you said.

On ball picks, any type of way you can free up the ball carrier goes out of bounds. You’re starting with that guy with it, subbing over the midline, having come through the box. There are a lot of different ways that you can end up getting your best player the ball. I know for us, we’re never going to tell our best player, ‘Just go sit in the corner, and chill and make a new friend.’

What do you want me to do? We’re going to do everything we can to try to get him involved somehow, some way, whether it’s on ball picks or dead ball situations, or like I said, sub it over the midline and have him come to the box. We are going to do everything we can to try to get him involved.

@TheKyleDevitte
kyle.devitte@laxjournal.com

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