Merrimack girls lacrosse looking to bounce back from rough season

A year ago, the Merrimack High School girls lacrosse team was not in a good place.

Coming off the program's first championship, the Tomahawks had lost a lot of talent to graduation, and less than a week into practice, they lost their head coach.

After struggling through the first half the season, Merrimack bounced back to make the Division II playoffs, but lost in the quarterfinals to Bedford.

This year, with coach Paul Drone able to fully prepare for a the season, and with a handful of talented players returning, Merrimack is hoping for big things again.

"It's a much smoother transition and there was better preparation going into the preseason this year," Drone said. "We knew the girls and I'm more familiar with the women’s game. We feel pretty good. We've got almost the entire varsity squad back from a year ago."

That includes a core of Courtney Duffy, Amber Olson and Julia Perry, who were all contributors to the Tomahawks' championship in 2012. The experiences of winning a title, and of coming up short, is something Drone believes will help this group compete with the best teams in the division.

"We only had three seniors," he said of last season. "They had a great work ethic but like anything, when you have so many talented players who played ahead of you and graduated, you kind of have to build that confidence that you belong there.

"I believe as the season went on, the girls really started to believe in themselves, that they were a caliber of team that could compete with the top teams in Division II. They're coming in this year with that confidence that they're going to be competitive week in and week out."

Merrimack was scheduled to scrimmage against Derryfield on Saturday.