After coming close before, unexpected run delivers D2 title for Portsmouth boys lacrosse

When practice started this spring, Mike Durkin looked around at the Portsmouth High School boys lacrosse team and wondered what exactly he and his teammates would be in for in 2021.

Having lost quite a few talented players to graduation and prep school since the last time the Clippers were on the field, the junior didn't have high expectations for this year.

"At the beginning of the season, I thought we were going to be terrible," Durkin said. "I thought we were barely going to win any games. We’ve got a lot of juniors and we’ve all played together for a while."

Portsmouth coach Chad Vischer was wondering pretty much the same thing before practices started. There were several questions surrounding the team, including who was going to come out to play after missing a season the year before.

"Mike Durkin is a hockey kid (and) I don’t see him all winter long," Vischer said. "All of a sudden he shows up and he’s still an athlete. I was literally texting him a week before practice asking if he was coming out. Our goalie (Skyler Mikolaitties) didn’t do anything in the offseason and I had no idea if he was going to play.

"I had no idea that we were going to have a kid (freshman Nick Smith) who faced off at 85-90 percent. I didn’t expect Owen (Ingwersen) and Henry (Fitzpatrick) and Peter (Wool) to be as lockdown as they were this year."

With one of the tougher regular-season schedules in the division, and the hardest path through the playoffs, all the Clippers (20-1) did was win the program's first championship, beating Timberlane 9-6 in the Division II final.

"I think it was (a surprise)," Durkin said. "We were rolling throughout the beginning of the season and we didn’t really think we were going to. After we beat Derryfield (in the regular season), it brought our confidence so much higher. We were the first team to beat them (since 2015)."

Portsmouth did it by playing solid defense and keeping the ball away from opponents on offense. The Clippers allowed an average of 4.3 goals per game this year and never gave up more than seven in a game.

"Our defense has been our key," Vischer said. "We weren’t a great offensive team and when you don’t score a lot, you have to battle."

Vischer also credited the team's tougher schedule to the Clippers' ability to withstand a Timberlane run in the first half. After taking a 3-0 lead, Portsmouth saw the Owls come back to tie it up in the second quarter.

Portsmouth answered quick to retake the lead and then went up two before halftime.

"The two goals were key to let our boys relax," the coach said. "They came back and got three and we had to build that buffer. If we didn’t have the road we had, we wouldn’t have been able to. We were down two to Winnacunnet (in the first round). Our guys didn’t doubt themselves."

Being able to come back quick also helped Portsmouth take the large Timberlane crowd out of the game.

"They had a massive crowd, I think that was hyping them up," Durkin said. "As soon as they started scoring, they were getting them going. We had to shut that down quickly. We came back at them as quickly as we could.

"If we didn’t get those goals, I think it would have been a completely different game. We took away all their energy right there. We increased the lead so that they couldn’t just get a lucky goal or lucky bounce. I’m so happy we could win it for our coach."