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Sports

After Big Loss, UMBC's Zimmerman Says He'll Be Tougher

The Retrievers' coach said he went too easy on his team after a recent loss to North Carolina.

In the second half of a March 5 game versus No. 10 North Carolina, Don Zimmerman’s UMBC lacrosse team rebounded from a rough first half and played the Tar Heels to a feel-good, 7-7 draw in the final two quarters.

The Retrievers lost the game, 13-9, but the second half improvement softened Zimmerman. The coach said he was encouraged by his team's play after halftime, and went easy on them in the post-game locker room.

But after a Saturday in the Face-Off Classic at M&T Bank Stadium, Zimmerman thinks he went too easy on his team after the North Carolina game.

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He won’t make that mistake again.

“It’s a young team,” Zimmerman said of UMBC. “Sometimes you give a young team an inch, and they take a mile.”

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Zimmerman said after congratulating his team for battling back against a quality opponent in the Tar Heels, he returned after briefly leaving the locker room to find his players acting as if they had won.

After playing what the coach called “selfish” lacrosse versus the Blue Jays, Zimmerman said he won’t go easy on his players anymore.

The Retrievers (1-3) have dropped three straight games and have a myriad of problems, from the broken thumb of  goalkeeper Brian McCullough, who beat out sophomore Adam Cohen for the job in preseason, to a defense that is fighting to replace the loss of two seniors from last season, Bobby Atwell and Mike Camardo, to an offense that has been without a pure scorer since 2009.

 “I can’t go in there and be encouraging to those guys…” Zimmerman said. “At this point, now I got to lower the hammer a bit. The whole thing about us being young is no longer an excuse.

“I got to be harder.”

Now, for this week’s list:

Quote of the Week: "This has got to hurt, and they got to sense that, and they've got to know that's the way I feel. That's the educational process from today. This is unacceptable. This is unacceptable, and to perform like this is unacceptable." —UMBC lacrosse coach Don Zimmerman after his team was throttled by Johns Hopkins, 16-5.

Line of the Week: 4-for-4 (single, double, triple, home run), 3 runs, 3 RBI – UMBC softball second baseman Lauren Brummell, who hit for the cycle in a 14-2 drubbing of Morgan State.

Top Tweet:#UMBC Baseball Picks up First Win, Defeats Fairfield with Walk-Off Hit, 3-2 http://bit.ly/esNXrG” — @UMBCAthletics. The baseball team had been 0-6 before Michael Pesci’s walk-off single in a 3-2 win over Fairfield.

For the Record: Retrievers women’s lacrosse attack Erika Braerman recorded a career-high five assists in a 20-6 win over Manhattan, moving her into seventh place all-time in that category at UMBC. She also helped the Retrievers get off to their best start (5-2) since 1994.

Player to Watch: UMBC women’s lacrosse senior midfielder Amanda Pappas, who scored six goals in a 20-6 win over Manhattan and leads the team with a .591 shot percentage.

Game to Watch: The UMBC women’s basketball team received an automatic bid to the Women’s National Invitation Tournament this season by virtue of winning the America East Conference regular season title. The WNIT bracket will be released late Monday night via the tournament website.

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