BY MATT STOUT
Its troubles started with the rain. Now, the John Stark boys lacrosse team hopes the entire season isn’t a washout.
After the unfriendly weather crowded the schedule, forcing the squad from its home field, not much has gone right for Stark this year. At 1-9 entering a game against Pelham on Wednesday, May 16, the Generals are mired in a stretch that includes 11 games in the season’s final three weeks.
With the team struggling to find consistency on both ends of the field, that has translated into a losing streak and little to no practice. With four regular-season games left in six days, Stark lacks both the time and facilities for any more practices, as its final session of the season came a week and a half ago on May 7.
That has left the Generals frustrated, downtrodden and, of course, tired. They’ve played all their home games at a field six miles away at New England College, which has hardly felt like home, and besides an 8-6 win at Gilford on April 25, there has been little reason to celebrate.
This isn’t what Stark had in mind.
“We’re compressing an entire season into three and a half weeks here, and it’s one game after another after another,” said Stark coach Zach Lawson. “We don’t get a chance to play a game and then work on something and come back and play another game. We just keep doing the same stuff game after game and hope that it works.
“The other part of it is some of the attitude on the team,” he continued. “A lot of people are tired, a lot of people are frustrated. It’s just been a tough season.”
Not helping matters is the feeling that things won’t get much better. Despite playing what Lawson called the “sweet spot” of the schedule against one-win Trinity on Tuesday, May 15, two-win Pelham and then one-win Derryfield School on Friday, May 18, Stark has watched several other Division III teams pass them in both the standings and in potential, Lawson said.
Several programs are benefiting from growing youth programs, meaning the league is getting more competitive, and what were once considered middle-of-the-road teams are now challenging the upper echelon.
“It’s a flattening of the division,” Lawson said. “(Teams like Hopkinton and Somersworth) really started to pick up steam, where we’re kind of stuck where we’ve always been.”
In addition to the Gilford win, there have been some positive signs to point to, including a solid effort in a 10-2 loss to league-leading Kearsarge, and exciting individual play from Austin and Travis Nevins, Zintis Jones and other seniors, like Jacob Philibert and Josh Saball.
But the ongoing problems, combined with what Lawson called “environmental” problems that have plagued the team this year, haven’t sat well with any of the players either.
“Losing six, seven games in a row, that sucks,” said Philibert, who added that the attack has suffered from not executing plays and not calling them. “You really don’t want to play after that. It’s not fun anymore. Getting some wins in between there, it helps.”
The Generals hope to do just that, first against Derryfield, before finishing the season with three straight games starting Monday, May 21, against Milford, Merrimack Valley and Stevens.
“I’m not as optimistic we’ll go in and win those games,” Lawson said. “I’m optimistic we’ll go and play well in those games and gain some confidence back.”