After a tough start to their 2015 season, the Mercer Island girls lacrosse team has begun to find its groove on the field, winning four-straight games to climb into second place in the Alki League standings.

The Islanders handed Bellarmine Prep its second loss of the season in a 16-6 victory at Islander Stadium Thursday, April 16. They followed that win with an 18-2 thumping of Kennedy Catholic Saturday, April 18 in Burien, improving to 5-2 on the season and one game behind first-place Bainbridge Island.

Not bad after suffering early-season losses in two of their first three games to Bainbridge and Lakeside, the first-place team in the North Sound division.

“We had a couple of tough games early on in the season where we didn’t have time to practice in between or time to work on things,” coach Liz Shields said after Thursday’s win. “I feel like now we’ve had some games that have been spread out and we’ve had time at practice to work on some of our defense in transition and shooting that we struggled with in earlier games.”

Shooting hasn’t appeared to be a problem in the team’s last three wins, all double-digit Islander victories. In each of their last two wins, nine different Islanders have found the back of the net. Hannah Paborsky led the way against Bellarmine with four goals and an assist, while Katie Harris was the leading scorer against Kennedy Catholic with four goals of her own.

Shields said a particular area of improvement has been getting to the ball and winning draw controls. Given time to adjust, she’s seen the Islanders improve as the season has progressed.

“We didn’t really have time to work on the things and we hadn’t played any warm-up games as well. We just kind of went up against Bainbridge,” Shields said. “After we see everyone play, you work at what you need to work on.”

Mercer Island will take on Bellingham at 8 p.m. Tuesday, April 21 at Islander Stadium.