Hanover — Junior midfielder Reed Winter can finally feel the offensive rhythm. It wasn’t there through his Hanover High boys lacrosse team’s first few games, as the Marauders searched the fill the holes left by four departed offensive players from last season. But through two games this week, the cobwebs seem to finally be swept away.

The Marauders used their increased offense and signature defense to shut down Concord 10-4 Wednesday afternoon at Hanover High. Winter and George Geraghty, Hanover’s top offensive threat, each scored three goals each in the victory.

“That’s a very good defensive team,” said Hanover head coach Ryan Gardner, his team 3-3 overall and 2-1 in NHIAA Division I this season. “Concord had an outstanding goaltender. He gave us a lot of fits early on and our guys did a nice job of reacting and adjusting to where we normally shoot, which is low. We were getting fakes, going high.”

The victory came two days after the Marauders dissected Merrimack 18-1 at home. Hanover has scored a combined 28 goals in its last two games after scoring 44 over its first four games.

Until this week, offense wasn’t what the Marauders hung their hats on. Not this year, anyway. Senior defensive stalwarts Tashi Tenzin and Tristan Gosselin, along with newcomer Kaleb Hunt, have created a consistently reliable defensive unit for Gardner’s team. In front of senior goaltender Zander Lingelbach-Pierce, who stopped eight shots in Wednesday’s win and, according to Gardner, has improved from a year ago, it was pretty clear how the Marauders would have to win their games this season.

“There’s definitely (more pressure on the offense this year),” Winter said. “Our offense is pretty young. … We had to figure out pretty quickly what to do and how to put in as many goals as we can.”

It’s a change from a year ago, when Hanover’s Jin Kim, Ben Acker, Conor Austin and Brendan Forauer combined for 206 points.

“Our team really feeds off the energy of our defenders,” Gardner said. “Especially because there are three senior starting defenders back there. They really set the tone early with a couple of solid, physical hits. And from that, we were able to draw a lot of energy offensively.”

Hanover junior Brian Seltzer opened the scoring two minutes into the game, taking advantage of some early penalty trouble for Concord. The Crimson Tide took three penalties in the first quarter alone, two of which led to Marauder goals. Sophomore Brian Pattison and Geraghty, also on the man advantage, added their own tallies to the onslaught.

Concord simply couldn’t recover, although it cut the deficit to three goals in the second quarter and again after halftime. It wasn’t until the third quarter that the Tide started picking up offensive momentum, forcing Hanover’s experienced defense to commit turnovers that led to Concord scoring chances. Gardner called a timeout to settle his team down. Just like that, the momentum was right back in the Marauders’ favor.

Geraghty added an assist to his hat trick. Seltzer added two goals and one assist and Jake Acker added one goal. Concord managed only 12 shots in the game.

“It’s huge,” Gardner said of the win. “Concord is in a similar position to us where, I wouldn’t say we’re the middle of the pack, but we’re probably chasing teams like Bishop Guertin and Pinkerton. These are the games that we have to win in order to have better playoff seeding.”

For Gardner, in his second year with the Marauders, the early win showed signs of progress for a team still looking for some flow. Geraghty, a St. Anselm College commit, is the team’s clear-cut offensive star after scoring 16 goals and adding 41 assists as a junior, and has spent much of this season being guarded by opposing team’s No. 1 defender. Gardner hopes that, as the season progresses, that his team’s secondary offense can fill in the blanks.

Winter has shown early signs of doing just that this season, particularly with his play-making ability through the middle of the field. It’s a combination that Gardner feels comfortable with early on.

“A lot of guys are playing and a lot of guys are contributing, which is nice,” he said.

For Winter, Wednesday’s victory was only an early example of what his Hanover team could do this season. Now the Marauders will be looking for more, starting Friday on the road against Dover.

“I think we realized (before the season) that a lot of guys had to step up and play our part, work hard in the off-season,” he said. “We expected more of what we did last year, and kind of take that with fire. We have some good competition and we know what we have to do.”

Josh Weinreb can be reached at jweinreb@vnews.com or at 603-727-3306.