Several days after Severna Park boys lacrosse beat Towson, 8-6, to win another state championship at Stevenson University, first-year coach Bob Zichelli was asked how it would feel if the Falcons didn’t win an eighth straight title and 13th overall.
“Oh, now that’s a good question,” Zichelli said sitting in his patio at home. “I still don’t know how many we have won. In fact, on the bus ride home from the game, I had to ask the kids how many we have won in a row.”
Critics will say that Zichelli landed in a great spot because lacrosse is big in the Severna Park community. They will also say it’s easy to win with a roster that has 40 to 45 players dress for a game because the selection process is so broad.
In some respect, that’s true. But it’s hard to replace a legend like Dave Earl, who won six titles in his seven seasons before Zichelli became coach. It’s easier in some situations to go to a losing program because the first season is always about changing the culture and attitude.
Zichelli, 66, had to walk the fine line of maintaining tradition while also being able to put his personal signature on a program that returned only two starters. Plus, Earl remains one of his best friends.
“We’ve all seen it before where somebody gets released, and the new coach has to change the culture,” Zichelli said. “We already had a culture. I didn’t have a lot of rules, so I wasn’t going to make a lot of changes. I named four seniors captains and if somebody strayed off course, if somebody was fooling around too much or goofing around in school, those guys took care of it. They stepped up.”
“Earl and I are good friends, he was good to my kids when they played for him and good for the community,” added Zichelli, the father of seven children. “He was the one who recommended me for the job, so wholesale changes weren’t needed.”
Earl, who left Severna Park to spend more time with his family — including watching his son, Logan, play goalie at nearby St. Mary’s High — stayed in touch with Zichelli. That’s strange since most successful longtime coaches stay away from their old team because they don’t want to interfere, but Earl became a sounding board.
Zichelli looked to hire some of his contemporaries as assistants, but that idea was nixed by most of his kids, four of them boys who had played at Severna Park. They wanted some young voices, so Zichelli hired Merrick Wood, 26, as his defensive coordinator and Jack Thomas, 24, and Randy Waugh, 35, to work on offense.
“If it wasn’t for Jack, Randy and Merrick, we don’t go anywhere,” Zichelli said. “Those guys are awesome and it doesn’t happen without them. I just remember my children telling me I needed some new assistants whom the players couldn’t identify with. They were right.”
Zichelli doesn’t want a lot of credit, but this was his team. Earl had several team rules, and his scouting reports were like encyclopedias, just pages and pages of information. When Earl was on the field, he was like a conductor at a symphony orchestra calling out plays and formations.
Zichelli was more free flowing. The Falcons incorporated a lot of basketball into the offense, which was built more on rhythm and “picks and slips” than running traditional, robotic sets.
It worked out well. Attackman Jack Fish finished with 48 goals and 15 assists. Midfielder John Burkhardt had 40 goals and 18 assists while attackman Timmy Sullivan and midfielders Nolan Grizzle and Tucker Moran combined for 82 goals.
“They knew I liked more of an open set,” Zichelli said of his players and assistants. “They knew I didn’t want to be calling out Hopkins, Carolina, Virginia or whatever on every play. We had guys who wanted to work hard and they got it. After a while, we were like, ‘We’re not going to be yelling and screaming at you all day long.’”
The defense was even more impressive. Starting defensemen Teddy Evans, Joey Viskocil and Upton Young, as well as short-stick midfielders Landon Williams and Merric Warren and long-stick midfielder William Mazcko, held the opponets in check as Severna Park outscored foes 68-23 enroute to a 19-1 record and a final No. 6 ranking in The Baltimore Sun’s Top 15 poll.
Every season has a turning point, and Severna Park’s, according to Zichelli, came in an 8-7 comeback win over James Madison High on March 27.
“It was our worst game of the year,” Fish said. Zichelli agreed.
“We went over to Virginia, we played Madison and we got down 5-0, and it wasn’t pretty, nothing was working,” Zichelli said. “And we kind of pulled everybody in and I kind of gave it to a few of the seniors and I basically pulled two of them [captains] aside and told them, ‘I had 20 guys over here that want your job. And I can tell you right now, some of those guys are mad at me that I chose you over them. If you can’t get the job done, I’m pulling you out.’ We turned it around and everything changed after that.”
Before joining Severna Park’s varsity, Zichelli had served as the coach of the Falcons’ junior varsity for six years. His policy was to never make cuts, which made him a favorite among players. He had also coached many seasons in the recreation ranks, having taught several of his current assistants.
Zichelli is an easy guy to like. He let all of his seniors have a shot at getting their top choice of jersey numbers before the season started. He brags about his fellow coaches in Anne Arundel County. Shoot, as a part-time bus driver in the county, he even drove his team to several games this season.
“As a person, he’s caring,” Fish said. “He’s pretty devoted to what he does, a very nice guy. He’s easy to talk to if you have any problems, very approachable. And I think he actually just cares about all the kids on the team.”
Before hiring Zichelli, school officials offered the job to a younger coach who eventually turned it down because of other business opportunities. Zichelli didn’t want the job initially, but ran into Severna Park athletic director David Kauffman at a cross country meet in Crofton. Of course, Zichelli was driving the bus, but he told Kauffman that if he was really in a bind, he would consider taking the job.
Zichelli was urged on by two of his two sons, who said their father was still suffering through depression from the death of their brother, Kevin, who was killed two years ago in a forklift accident in nearby Millersville.
Zichelli and his wife, Jenny, still get emotional about the accident. His players have planted a tree in the family’s yard each of the past two seasons in memory of Kevin.
“My sons, Bobby and Tommy, who are now in their late 30s and have their own children, said I was depressed and I didn’t know what to do with myself,” Zichelli said. “They told me I had to do something because I was in a funk.
“I talked to Dave whom I had met a few times, and then Earl called and told me I should apply and he would recommend me. I keep telling everyone that I’m not the long-term coach, and they’ll need to replace me soon.”
That doesn’t appear to be the case in the immediate future, and it certainly doesn’t hurt when his team wins another state championship.
Zichelli has been the perfect fit.