Alvirne’s 2024 lacrosse season will consist of 14 games, beginning on April 8 and ending on May 23. Like hockey, lacrosse has a different divisional alignment than most sports, thanks to having more co-op programs. Alvirne falls into Division II in lacrosse, which primarily houses teams with scholastic populations of 700-1149, losing Portsmouth, Bishop Guertin, and Souhegan to Division I and Milford to Division III by petition and gaining Manchester Memorial-West, Keene-Monadnock, Manchester Central, and Spaulding from Division I and Hanover from Division III by petition.
The Broncos play six home and eight away games this season, leaving them with an unbalanced schedule. They’ll open the year with a home matchup against the Windham Jaguars on April 8 and then hit the road to take on Merrimack Valley on April 11. The Broncos will follow the Monday/Thursday schedule for the first few weeks of the season, playing at ConVal (Peterborough) on April 15 and then at home against Kingswood on April 18. April 22 will bring Manchester Memorial-West to Alvirne before the Broncos return to the road on April 25 at Keene-Monadnock Regional. Goffstown will come to town on April 29, and Alvirne will travel to Oyster River to take the Oyster River-Newmarket Mulecats. Hollis-Brookline comes to town on May 6 for the Broncos lone game that week before Alvirne goes on the road for three games the following week, at Winnacunnet on May 13, at Memorial-West on May 15, and at Pembroke on May 17. They’ll then head home one last time, hosting Timberlane on May 20 before going to John Stark Regional to take on John Stark-Hillsboro-Deering on May 23 to wrap up the regular season.
Alvirne will be looking for their first win since May 12, 2022 against Spaulding. Since then, the Lady Broncos are 0-21, with their closest loss since that Spaulding win being a 12-8 loss to Nashua North that immediately followed. Alvirne has lost all but three games in that span by double digits.
A playoff run is somewhat hard to imagine for Alvirne’s Lady Lax team, but the same has been said about several Alvirne squads this season. All of Alvirne’s teams, except girls’ soccer and volleyball, have made the playoffs, so anything is possible for the Maroon and Gold, especially if they are able to get some momentum early on in the season. Not even necessarily in the form of wins, but close games. Competitive losses can sometimes generate just as much momentum as wins, which is what the Broncos will be hoping to do this season: be competitive.
Having a goal of steering things in the right direction this year in preparation for 2025 is not necessarily a bad thing. The key is being able to win at least one game, and possibly at least compete in a few more. Even for the Broncos to earn themselves a 3-11 or 4-10 record, based on last year’s standings, would leave them just three games out of a playoff spot. If the Broncos are able to keep themselves alive mathematically into early-to-mid May, that would be a great step forward for the program and possibly put them into a spot to make the playoffs, or at least make a serious run at a spot, next year.
