Another great lacrosse season is in the books, but here's how to make it better

For the third straight year, the New Hampshire high school boys lacrosse season ended the way that it should.

All three division championship games where held at the same venue on the same day, giving lacrosse fans around the state the opportunity to see what turned out to be three entertaining games.

That change, which was made before the start of the 2015 season, has been one of the best to happen to the sport - at least on the boys side - in recent memory.

There are a few others that I wouldn't mind seeing take place, one of which would help promote what has already been a growing sport in New Hampshire for some time. The rest would be, I think, some interesting changes that would add a little intrigue to the regular season and the playoffs.

Add a fourth division

Don't worry, I'm well aware of how this might be viewed, as I've heaped praise on the NHIAA for cutting football down from six divisions to three. And if you want to read my thoughts on what changes should be made there, you can do so.

While three divisions makes sense for football, I think a fourth division, to promote development and build new programs, makes sense for boys lacrosse.

There would be two types of teams that would make up this fourth division - new programs and teams that historically have struggled, meaning teams that have a winning percentage of under .200 over the previous four years (or two, two-year cycles).

Based on those criteria, a Division IV in boys lacrosse would have five programs that have been around four years or fewer (Alvirne, Belmont, Campbell, Coe-Brown and Inter-Lakes/Moultonborough) and six programs that have struggled in recent years (Kennett, Manchester Central, Manchester Memorial, Manchester West, Spaulding and Stevens).

So how would a team move back out of Division IV? When the NHIAA updates divisions based on enrollment every two years, the same could be done with these teams, based on record over that cycle. If a program feels it's on the rise and can be competitive, then it would be able to move into one of the other three divisions.

Balanced schedules

Creating a fourth division would have another affect on the lacrosse landscape by evening out the number of teams in each division. Division I and III would both drop to 12 teams, while Division II would go to 16.

To even things off even more, two teams could drop from D2 down to D3 to make each a 14-team division, but that wouldn't be enough to balance out scheduling in each division. While D1 teams typically play every team in the division at least once, that's not the case in the other two divisions, often times because of travel.

In order to better balance things out, why not break each division down into two conferences, similar to what is done in football.

Division I

The 12 teams could be separated into two conferences of six teams, let's say East (Pinkerton, Londonderry, Salem, Exeter, Merrimack, Concord) and West (Bishop Guertin, Nashua North, Nashua South, Hanover, Souhegan, Bedford).

Teams would play everyone in their conference twice (10 games), plus two crossover games against the other conference. That leaves as many as six other games to be scheduled, which would allow teams like Bishop Guertin and Pinkerton to keep their out-of-state rivalries, and allow other D1 teams to schedule games against D2 and D3 teams.

Division II

For this exercise, let's bump two teams to D3: Oyster River and Pembroke, the teams with the lowest winning percentages over the last four years among the remaining D2 teams.

That leaves 14 teams that could again be separated into two conferences, divided by East (Portsmouth, Dover, St. Thomas, Kingswood, Winnacunnet, Timberlane and Bow) and West (Derryfield, Hollis Brookline, Windham, Goffstown, Keene, Merrimack Valley and John Stark).

Teams could play everyone in their conference twice (12 games) and play two crossover games against the other conference, plus as many as four games against other divisions.

Division III

Again, it'd be a 14-team division with two conferences, but divided by North (Hopkinton, Kearsarge, Plymouth, Laconia, Bishop Brady, Gilford and Lebanon) and South (Pelham, Trinity, ConVal, Monadnock, Pembroke, Oyster River and Milford).

Scheduling would be similar to D2, with teams playing at least 14 games and as many as 18.

Postseason

But what about playoffs? There would be two ways potentially to do the playoffs.

One would be to keep the current point rating system that doesn't factor in for strength of schedule, and take the top four teams from each conference. Each conference would have two rounds of playoffs, with the winners of each meeting for the championship.

Or, using the NHIAA's football rating system, which factories in strength of schedule by assigning point values to wins, the playoff field could be made up of the top eight in each division, regardless of conference, and seeded that way.

It would be a little trickier to figure out, but if it was anything like how football has worked out, it would create interest and debate. And who doesn't love that?

Girls Lacrosse

While there are certainly haves and have-nots in New Hampshire girls lacrosse, there seems to be more parity, and perhaps less of a need for a fourth division.

But what I would like to see change is the playoff schedule, particularly the championship games.

Stagger the girls playoffs similar to the boys, but take advantage of the final Monday and Friday of the playoff week, when in recent years, there has been nothing scheduled for either day.

All three girls lacrosse championship games could be played the Friday before the boys, and with girls games typically running faster than boys, could go off starting at 3 p.m. with two hours set between each game.

It's worked with football and boys lacrosse, let's try it out with girls lacrosse, too.