
NORTH ANDOVER, Mass. – As the Merrimack College men’s lacrosse players marched one by one out of the school’s largely empty athletic center – through a deserted campus where most of the rest of the students had already gone home for the summer, and past the stadium filled with chairs for this weekend’s commencement ceremony to the lower practice field – the Warriors did so with the feel of a team on a mission.
A mission to live up to the tradition of a program making its fifth straight trip to a Final Four. A mission to defend last year’s national championship. A mission to punctuate the school’s run as a Division 2 power before moving up to Division 1 next year.
A mission to prove that they’re better than the No. 6 seed in the national championship’s North bracket, all after losing to Le Moyne in the Northeast-10 Conference semifinals.