The Lady Huskies and new head coach, Meredith Bickford, have high hopes for the season.
“We will be a forced to be reckoned with this year,” Bickford said.
USM has only nine returning players, and of those nine, only three are seniors. The Huskies will have to rely on a mix of new and old players to help turn around a program that has struggled in its five year history. Senior captain Amanda Loomis (Poultney, VT), thinks the team’s diversity will be beneficial.
“The old players will be there to help the new ones develop, and the new players bring a new, fresh style to our team,” Loomis said.
The Huskies opened up the season with a win, but have dropped their last three since. Coach Bickford doesn’t expect the recent slide to continue.
“We have a lot of potential. I expect us to be much stronger in our conference than in the past,” Bickford said.
USM has only fifteen players eligible to play this year, and with twelve on the field at one time, conditioning will be a huge factor on whether or not the Huskies will be successful. To put things in prospective, they will face teams with as many as twenty two players on their roster. The team will have to rely on their athleticism, and skills to lead them to a winning season.
“We are all in good shape, and we have a lot of talent,” said senior Jesse Superchi (Campton, NH).
Coach Bickford steps in as the Huskies’ third coach in their short span as a varsity program at USM. She plans to bring the team places they have never been.
“We are much stronger than in the past. I hope to finish in the top fourth or fifth in our conference.”
Bickford expects players like sophomore Sarah Proulx (Hebron, ME), senior captain Emily Kirkland (Damariscotta, ME), Superchi, and sophomore Justene Larnerd (Cherry Hill, NJ) to step up and bring the team to a higher level of success.
“I just want them to come out every game ready to play. We need to continuously keep improving our fundamentals and skills,” Bickford said.
The Huskies come in with an added sense of excitement with Bickford calling the shots.
“We came in this year with a lot more energy. We have a new sense of play, and Coach is able to teach us more useful lacrosse techniques,” Loomis said.
“Things are totally different this year. Coach expects everything from us, and pushes us harder than ever before to get out all of our potential,” Superchi said.
Coach Bickford, a former two-sport standout in softball and field hockey at USM, plans to change the team’s style of play.
“I want to implement a stronger transition from offense to defense. We need to get the ball up the field quicker,” Bickford said.
Bickford also spoke about how in the past the Huskies relied on one or two players to handle the ball. She wants the team to focus on improving their passing game by moving the ball more often.
The Huskies main goal is to secure spot in the post season for the first team in the team’s history.
“We want to progress as a team and hopefully we will make it to the playoffs,” Loomis said.
USM will host Little East Conference foe Rhode Island College on Thursday and travel to UMass Dartmouth on Saturday.