Hines brings winning culture to Chesapeake
Before the lacrosse season began, Chesapeake senior Natalie Forman was scared.
“‘I’m thinking, ‘Oh, my God. I’m a senior starter coming in, and I’m going to sit the bench,’ ” Forman said.
Anxiety rattled fellow seniors Addison Widmer and Abbey Warner. It seemed to be a common sentiment among the returning Cougars.
All because of their new coach: Kaitlyn Hines.
“We were all nervous,” Warner said. “I didn’t know what to expect, hearing her coming from Severna Park. It was nerve-wracking because they’re highranked. It was a lot of pressure.”
Everyone knew Severna Park, a hallmark girls lacrosse program in Anne Arundel County and Maryland with 14 state titles to its name.
The Cougars have never won a state title and haven’t been to the championship game in 32 years. They assumed the woman who was Severna Park’s coach for seven seasons, an assistant for three years and a player before that, would think little of them and maybe install a new, brutal system they couldn’t last in.
They were wrong.
“They were so inviting,” Warner said of the new coaching staff. “They wanted to teach us to be our best.”
A few days into preseason practice, participation increased as student-athletes heard the new coaches weren’t falconheaded disciplinarians. Some girls even defected from other sports.
“I’m really glad they came. I wish they came earlier,” Warner said.
Hines understood that anxious uncertainty, having walked in it nine months ago. After her Falcons finished as the Class 3A state runner-up, the Severna Park administration informed her it would not be renewing her contract during her annual coaching performance evaluation. Coaching contracts are year-to-year, she knew that, but Severna Park had been her whole world her entire life. Grief still hung around her when she learned of another coaching opportunity at Chesapeake.
“I wanted to keep going and find something,” Hines said. “I wasn’t done. So I was so grateful for this opportunity.”
Hines was hired at the end of July to coach a Cougars team coming off a 6-10 season. When she arrived, she was impressed by the Chesapeake student-athletes’ dedication to their sports across seasons and different programs’ success at the county and state level. But it was all still an adjustment to Hines, going from knowing her Severna Park players from the moment they first grasped a lacrosse stick to learning names, let alone how they play.
Hines warned them she would be reteaching things, overhauling for adjustments, because there was a level of greatness she saw in them and expected them to reach for it.
“But these girls were so hungry for change. I think that was a huge part of it,” Hines said. “I was able to meet with the seniors before the season. They were very vocal about, ‘We’re excited. We’re ready to work hard.’ And it’s been that way ever since.”
The Cougars are now 9-4, one of the best records in Ane Arundel County.
Carin Peterson, Hines’ aunt, coached Severna Park to multiple titles over 25 years. She now serves as an assistant on her niece’s staff.
“What she’s done with this team, to turn them around so quickly,” Peterson said, “I’m so proud of her.”
Hines knew she couldn’t force Chesapeake to become a mirror of Severna Park, and she didn’t want to. She established a structure to practice, meetings and games, and adopted many of the same drills she conducted before but adapted them to Chesapeake’s level and needs.
“I think the biggest adjustment was to play smarter and not harder,” Widmer said. “Turnovers were always our weakness, but if we make the smart decisions and we’re playing hard every game to finish out as hard as we can, we’re working them out.”
The Cougars used to begin every practice with 30 minutes of running. Now, the players warm up, run ladders — for less time than they used to — and move into stick work. Hines often gathers them and details what the players did well and what can be better.
Hines implemented a “three-strike rule.” If the players do something wrong in a drill, they’re given three strikes to fix it until they’re out. Forman likes it. Before, she said, they’d move on with those mistakes buried in them, just to release them on the playing field. Now, they know better. For four days, they practiced sliding defensively to prevent Broadneck from getting fast returns. And, it worked, Forman said. Hines is honest with her players, for improvements and for praise. Once, she told them that they’d beaten a score her Severna Park players set with her in a drill. Her players didn’t believe her.
“And I’m like, ‘Yes, I don’t lie to you about that,’ ” Hines said.
Trust took some time, the coach said. There were hiccups at the start when players reverted to old habits. She told them they could make the changes or not and go back to the same defeated seasons they were used to. And she told them they believed they could do better than that. She always said that.
It’s all they were ever waiting for, Forman said. Some of the seniors said they’d never experienced that kind of honest, consistent and positive reinforcement before. Forman loves it, she said, and loves Hines.
“She thinks we can win states,” Forman said, “and I believe her.”
Those kinds of changes were the reason senior goalkeeper Rachel Zabko was one of the few Cougars not scared about Hines’ arrival.
“I was really excited,” she said, “because one of the first things she told me was she brought a goalie coach. Finally, paying us a little more attention.”
Zabko worked briefly with a goalkeeping-focused coach a few years ago, but she said the attention was mostly placed on JV. It’s that kind of support she receives now that makes her believe it when Hines and her staff tell her team they’re good.
She’s watched her defense evolve in front of her, too, which alleviates pressure on her to stop every shot. Ahead of them, the offense is winning 50-50 balls, making the right shots. Feeling like they’ve nailed the foundation of the new offense and defense, Hines started adding on different pieces.
“We’re not moving to set plays anymore, we’re moving out of that and being creative and working together and, you know, becoming a really good team,” Zabko said. “And it’s nice to see.”
The Cougars are used to losing to not only the Severna Parks and Broadnecks of the county by double-digits, but the Southerns and Croftons, too. That was not the case this year. The Cougars prevailed over the Bulldogs, 10-9, on April 12. They lost to Crofton, but only 8-4 — much better than letting them score 18 on them as happened last season.
“We would’ve gotten smoked by Southern and all those other teams,” Widmer said. “We’re really changing.”
Tuesday, Chesapeake welcomed Severna Park. A roller coaster of emotions coursed through Hines, who spoke little all night. She hadn’t seen her former players in a year.
“I’m so proud of what they’ve done,” Hines said. “But I’m here with a team and a school that wants me . ... I saw something in them and they saw something in me.”
The Falcons won 7-2. A year ago, they blew Chesapeake out by 20.
Everything happens for a reason, Hines said. During practice, she turned toward her athletes, resuming drills as the rain stopped. The clouds parted, and a rainbow stretched across the sky. It was bright again.