LISBON

On paper, the Brunswick High School and Lisbon High School field hockey teams are very different. One, the Dragons, tallied just one win last season, while the other, the Greyhounds, made a deep run in the postseason.

For that exact reason, the two sides met in a preseason game in Lisbon on Thursday — both with their own goals in mind.

Brunswick

Coach Karin Paquin and the Dragons are looking to rebound from a disappointing 1-11-2 campaign that was riddled with close calls. After three one-goal losses and a few trips to overtime, Paquin says they key to success in the new year is turning those results into wins.

That all starts in the preseason, where Brunswick has already played the likes of Yarmouth and York, which combined to go 25-2 last season. It’s high standard in Class B South, and for Paquin, it doesn’t do any good to shy away.

“I like to pick teams that have been to the playoffs,” she said. “I take those games, and even if we don’t win those games, I say ‘OK where was the breakdown?’”

It was the opposite of a breakdown in a recent game against Gray-New Gloucester, where the Dragons turned a 6-0 preseason defeat last year into a 3-0 win. While it doesn’t count for anything on paper, it’s a measuring stick for how much the offseason work has paid off.

“We worked on passing, receiving the ball, and using each other,” senior Lauren Grocholl said. “Switching the field a lot. Definitely using the players a lot.”

“We took our mistakes, we changed it in practice, and then we applied it to the game. That’s really what we have to do. We’re going game by game,” Paquin said.

That attitude will be important at the beginning of the season, as the first four games on the schedule are on the road. After kicking things off with Mt. Blue on Wednesday, the Dragons will travel to Topsham, Cony, and Lewiston all in the first 10 days off the month.

But, like most Brunswick programs, they won’t be alone.

“It makes it tough, but we have an amazing fan base of parents and they literally go to every game” Paquin said. “They’re ready. They’re ready for this tough schedule, they’re ready to be on the road to begin with and they’re ready to end the season strong at home.”

If Paquin and company can get through the early-season grind, they’ll have three of their last five games at home before capping things off at Bowdoin College on Oct. 12 against rival Mt. Ararat.

Grocholl is one of five senior-captains that will be looked upon to lead the way. At the end of last season, they told Paquin that they wanted to be in the playoffs next year. Her response was to take all they went through in 2015 into this season — turn the heartbreakers into wins.

As far as goals go, Paquin is aiming for five wins — a total she hasn’t yet reached at the helm of the program. But this year, if the Dragons can find the back of the net, she thinks it’s obtainable. After last season, it can only get better.

“When I came into the program four years ago, I said it was going to take at least five years to get this team on par with the conference that we’re in,” Paquin said. “They’ve impressed me. In four years, they’re basically, at that five year marker.”

Lisbon

Unlike Brunswick, Julie Petrie’s Greyhounds have a very balanced schedule lined up this year, with alternating home and away games all season. After a tough loss (3-0) to rival Oak Hill in the Class C South Regional Final last season, the postseason goals are in place.

“That’s always our goal,” Petrie said. “We don’t expect anything, I tell the girls we’re a game-by-game mentality, and we set goals at the beginning of the season. I tell them set high expectations — you’re going to meet some, and you’re going to not.”

One reason the bar is so high again this year is the roster — Petrie lost just “two or three” starting players and has a prepared group of younger players “ready to step up in those spots.”

Bree Daigle is one of just three seniors on the squad, but all three have been in the program for over three years. She says the freshmen hit the ground running and the squad is meshing well already.

“Our freshmen class has a lot of talent,” Daigle said. “It’s great having them coming up and not having to go over push-passes or anything.”

For Lisbon, the preseason is less about trying to get over a hump and more about simply getting back into the swing of things. It also gives Petrie time to experiment and incorporate new players into her lineup.

“It gets them back into the game mentality,” Petrie said. “I always tell the girls I like to play tough competition to kind of keep them wanting to achieve.

“The preseason is not about wins and losses — it’s about figuring out your lineup. What works, formations, how to gel, different combinations and things like that. Just to get ready for that meet so there’s not as many unknowns.”

The Greyhounds will battle Hall-Dale a week from today before traveling to Boothbay on Sept. 7 and hosting Telstar on Sept. 9. Even with their lofty postseason goals out in the open, Daigle says the one thing the players aren’t doing is putting pressure on themselves to make it back.

“We want to be proud of ourselves for how far we go,” Daigle said. “Whether it be that we don’t go to the playoffs or we go all the way to states.”