Last year’s Harvard women’s lacrosse team looked to improve on a 3-11 record while transforming the program under a new head coach.

With last year’s leading scorers, All-Ivy selections, and head coach back for another season, this year’s squad can pick up where it left off.

The smoother segue has allowed the team to work on the finer points that lost out to more fundamental transitional concerns last season.

“Last year, we were focusing on integrating new players and changing the face of our program,” co-captain Catherine Sproul said.

The 2004 season had to rebuild personnel and redirect the team under new head coach Sarah Nelson ’94, an All-American at Harvard and recent selection for America’s World Cup team.

The Crimson finished last season 6-9 (1-6 Ivy), but the record fails to account for the narrowness of some margins of defeat.

“We had something like five or six one-goal games out of our nine losses last year,” Sproul said. “We need to translate those one-goal games into wins.”

To turn those games into wins, Harvard must address its inability last season to follow through in the second half.

“A lot of times when we lost because of one goal, it was a second-half let-down. We need to spring the balance the other way,” Sproul said.

In order to solve this problem, the team has spent much of the preseason running end-game scenarios to avoid critical late breakdowns.

“We’ve been focusing a lot on game management skills,” senior Danielle Travers said. “It’s starting to be inherent.”

Yet it will be for naught if the Crimson cannot convert the endurance of its second-half defense into threats up front.

That attack may be fueled by a corps of sprightly freshmen. Natalie Curtis and Jacqueline Hehir have made waves with their speed at midfield, and attack Caroline Simmons may pick up significant playing time this year. Attack Tara Schoen may also grab a lot of playing time when she recovers fully from illness.

“I don’t know what the coaches have in store,” Sproul said. “We have a lot of depth in the upper class, so we’ll see if they go for experience or speedy legs.”

The team graduated last year’s captains, but last year’s large junior class translates into nine experienced seniors this year.