Podcast: MIAA champion coach Ryan Nickerson of Billerica Memorial

Billerica Memorial (Mass.) head coach Ryan Nickerson is our guest on the latest "Chasing The Goal" podcast.

On this week’s episode of New England Lacrosse Journal’s “Chasing The Goal” podcast, hosts Kyle Devitte and Owen Hart are joined by Billerica Memorial (Mass.) High School head coach Ryan Nickerson.

Nickerson was born and bred to coach Billerica lacrosse. He was named the head coach right before COVID made the state and the nation pause their sports. Since then, he has developed Billerica into a powerhouse in MIAA Division 2.

Last season, Nickerson led his squad to the MIAA D-2 championship, where it prevailed in an absolute classic of a final, 17-16 over Reading Memorial. It resulted in Nickseron being named the USA Lacrosse Coach of the Year for the region. It was the culmination of 10 years of working to be a head coach of his alma mater.

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: What is your typical preseason look like with Billerica?

Ryan Nickerson: We try to get in the weight room as much as we can, but we have a lot of kids playing winter sports. We’re all gearing up, especially coaches, and then you have to remember that they’re in the prime of their seasons right now. We have a hockey team that’s going to the state tournament, a basketball team that’s going to the state tournament. We have track kids that are in state meets. So it’s really just kind of holding back and waiting, getting as ready as we can.

The week before the season, we get together with a couple of towns, and we do a preseason thing called spring meltdown. We’ve done it for the last 20 years. I went to it when I was a player. We just do a lot of stick skills, things like that, just to kind of give us four days to get around the kids and then we hit the ground running. They don’t really give you much time in Massachusetts lacrosse to get ready for the first game.

Owen Hart: You mentioned him earlier in the podcast, but Kam Tremblay is a special player. He played when he was an eighth-grader for you and you’ve done that a couple of times. What was the decision to bring in an eighth-grader and integrate him into your program? What was that integration process like, and how often are you guys doing that?

Ryan Nickerson: When they built the new high school, they built it to be eighth grade through 12th. So, that’s kinda why that happened. It was right before COVID, and so it happened that it was right when the high school opened as well.

I think Kam, specifically, was a phenomenal player and I got to see him at the youth level, so I knew he was tough and could handle it. He was a lacrosse rat; you have to be that if you want to play in eighth grade. It was also that he’s a lefty attackman. There’s only so many lefty attackmen. So, it was just the right time and he was the right player. I don’t know how often that’ll end up happening now. It is a big jump, but I definitely think some eighth graders can fill roles here and there.

@TheKyleDevitte
kyle.devitte@laxjournal.com

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