NEWBERG, Ore. -- The George Fox women's lacrosse team wants you to keep doubting them.

Despite winning 75 consecutive Northwest Conference games, the Bruins were projected to finish second in the NWC to Willamette in 2025. Under first-year head coach Jordyn Merkel, Fox made sure to show the rest of the conference that they still meant business; the Bruins went 8-0 in the NWC to improve to 83 straight NWC wins and won their ninth straight conference title over Whitman, 12-9.

"There's a lot of things we can take from last year, whether they're good or bad," Merkel said, " You can learn from the good times, and you still learn from the hardships and how you can tweak it to make it good."

Though the Bruins lose some key players (four seniors graduated, with one Second Teamer transferring), Fox still has plenty to look forward to. Two of its seniors, Lana Davis and Ava Bluhm, were IWLCA All-Region athletes in 2025 and are back for what they hope will be a record-breaking senior season.

Joining them are two other seniors in Sasha Thayer and Audrey White Together, Markel knows these players will continue what they did well last year — lead.

"The seniors are great," Merkel said, "They're great leaders in the weight room, great leaders on the field. They were great leaders as juniors last year and they're continuing that into their senior year."

Three juniors lead the way for Fox's next class: Claire Abraham, Jenna Clark, and Naomi Rauch. Abraham started all 19 games that Fox played, scoring 43 goals and dishing out 10 assists at the attack, and is one of the captains in 2026. Clark also played in 19 games on the defensive end, totaling 10 ground balls and eight caused turnovers, also getting in the scoring action with six points.

Rauch, meanwhile, started all but one game in her first year with Fox — the Newberg native attended Corban as a freshman — recording 12 goals and eight assists. One of Rauch's childhood friends, University of Mary Hardin-Baylor basketball transfer Alli Stilp, also joins the team as a junior (An academic senior, Stilp has one additional year of eligibility left after 2026).

On the sophomore side, the group also has one new player in Lily Glos, who attended Fox but did not play her freshman campaign. Glos, listed as a defender, has two other defenders alongside her: Jasmine Uresti, who has the most ground balls of any returner (43), and dual-sport athlete Hannah Hill.

With those three are two returning attackers in the sophomore class, Merrick Gibson and Anna Newkirk. Gibson was an Honorable Mention All-NWC athlete in her first year in Newberg, scoring 41 goals with 11 assists and a staggering 85.9% on goal shot percentage. Merkel said her and Newkirk, as well as all the sophomores, are showing up and building off of successful freshman years.

"The sophomores, especially the attackers, have really come out of their shells," Merkel said, "They've gained a lot of confidence on the field. All of them are going to be very beneficial for us."

Last, but certainly not least, the group has four freshmen: Callie Olson, Payten Roth, Gabrielle McClung, and Kat Ellett. Olson enters as an attacker from Buckley, Wash. while Roth was a Second-Team All-League athlete.

"They're adjusting to college and still adjusting to our standards," Merkel said of all the freshmen, "But I'm excited to see them begin the season and get into it with them. They've been great additions to our team, both for personality and work ethic."

Astute readers will notice one thing missing in the recap — a goalie. With all goalies in 2025 leaving the program, freshmen McClung and Ellett are the lone goalies on the roster. And while that may be a scary prospect for some coaches, Merkel says that "with the two of them, you can't tell that there's no older goalie."

Whoever is in goal to start the season will see Fox host Eastern Oregon before turning to face some tough opponents, many of whom they played in 2025. The Bruins will travel to Tennessee to play Sewanee in a return trip after the Tigers traveled to Newberg in Merkel's first year. California schools in Redlands and Occidental, in turn, will work their way up to Oregon for games in March and April.

"Our nonconference games help us kind of see where we are," Merkel said, "They are some similar teams that are playing again, and while we mix it up, we keep a little bit of that familiarity. Honestly, I'd like to do better with our nonconference games to get us ready for conference."

And conference can be a funny thing. While the Bruins boast an 83-game win streak in NWC play, Fox is still not the top projected team in the coaches preseason polls. GFU received just three first-place votes as opposed to the team the Bruins defeated in the 2025 NWC Title Game, Whitman, who received five.

But armed with a team full of talent that is ready to keep that conference title streak going, the message is clear.

Keep doubting GFU lacrosse.

We'll see where that gets you.