HANOVER — Unfortunately for the Hanover High girls lacrosse team, just as the home team seized some momentum in Tuesday’s season opener, Mother Nature had other plans.
Trailing 9-5 to begin the fourth quarter, the Bears began to chip away at Merrimack’s lead.
At the 7:32 mark, freshman Clare Higgins put a well-placed shot past Tomahawks’ goalie Sophia Richard to cut the deficit to three.
A little over two minutes later, junior Iris Chesnut found the back of the net to make the score 9-7 with 5:13 remaining.
But then, the weather intervened; the game was delayed for about an hour due to lightning in the area.
When the sky finally cleared, the Bears did not let the delay kill their comeback hopes. With 3:38 remaining, Chesnut scored again to pull her squad within one goal. But that’s as close as they would get.
The late rally came up short as the Bears fell to Merrimack High, 11-8, in an NHIAA Division II matchup at Merriman-Branch Field.
Merrimack scored twice in the final minutes of regulation, and Richard made some key stops late to put the game on ice.
After the season opener, Hanover Head Coach Sarah Martin said she was proud of her young group, noting that the team has no seniors this season.
“Merrimack is a really good team — we lost to them in overtime in the first game of the season last year, so I was really sort of curious to see how my girls would come out and fight,” she said.
“(There were) moments where we did things really well, and I’ve got a big, huge long list of things that are just going to have to be better, but I was particularly proud of how the team responded in the fourth,” she added.
The season could not have started much better for the Bears as junior Cassidy Loughman, who had three goals on the day, scored her first off a restart in the opening minute to put Hanover up 1-0.
But that would be Hanover’s lone lead of the contest. Merrimack’s Riley Taylor, who scored six times, got her first goal of the game 20 seconds later to tie the game.
Merrimack continued to mount pressure and broke through for its second goal with under five minutes remaining.
The Bears tied the game with under two minutes remaining in the frame on a goal from junior Casey Wilkinson.
Still, the Tomahawks went into the second quarter with a 3-2 lead after they scored with under 10 seconds remaining.
Merrimack built on its lead in the second quarter, scoring three goals, two of which came from Taylor. The Bears went into halftime trailing 6-3.
Hanover found itself down 7-3 after Taylor scored on a tough bounce that got past freshman goalie Rainey Fisher about a minute into the second half.
The Bears responded about 30 seconds later on a goal from Higgins, and Loughman added another with 3:59 remaining in the third to put Hanover within two goals at 7-5.
Merrimack scored its own pair of goals before the end of the third quarter and headed into the fourth leading 9-5.
Martin was pleased with the way her squad came out after a timeout she had called following Merrimack’s eighth goal of the contest, adding that she saw a “marked difference” in her team from that point on.
“I think that shows a lot of what this team can do — I’m super proud of them for that,” she said.
The Bears (0-1) will host Alvirne (0-1) for a matchup at 4 p.m. on Wednesday. They will wrap the week up with a visit to Keene-Monadnock (1-0) on Friday for a 4:30 p.m. contest.
“I was so proud of their effort and their grit in the fourth, and I’m really excited we get to play Merrimack again,” said Martin. “We play them again in May, and I think we’ll be an entirely different team — there’s so much potential with this group.”
