It was months before Alice Mercer would play a game, but she already was excited about her second season with the Fight of the Women’s Professional Lacrosse League.

Among the Fight’s fall draft picks were fellow U.S. national team pool players Kayla Treanor and Katrina Dowd. It got even better with a great spring draft led by 2018 Tewaaraton Award winner Sam Apuzzo out of Boston College.

“First and foremost, I’d attribute that to Shannon Smith and her staff for their great picks,” Mercer said. “When I saw everyone, the first thing that came to mind was we shouldn’t have any trouble scoring goals. I was really excited. They’re not only great players, they’re great people. It’s a stacked offense.”

Mercer knew well the sort of attack that was forming. An All-American defender and 2016 Tewaaraton finalist out of Maryland, Mercer suddenly found herself on a team with an attack of Kylie Ohlmiller, Treanor, Dowd and Apuzzo, with three-time Tewaaraton winner Taylor Cummings supporting them out of the midfield.

“I feel like because I’m on the other end of the field, I’m just trying to do my job and make sure we get the ball in their sticks,” Mercer said. “They’re unbelievable players, so the more they have the ball, the more successful our team will be also.”

The Fight have had the biggest turnaround of any WPLL team. Last year they had to win their final regular-season game just to improve to 1-3 and make the first WPLL playoffs. This year, the Fight are 3-0 and earned the top seed.

“We have some components from last year, and we’ve gotten a year to play with each other,” Cummings said. “It’s hard to play with brand new people and the first time you’re playing is in a game. When you have a year of playing with a solid core group under your belt, and that chemistry definitely built from last year to this year, and adding a couple of different people on top of that really solidified a core structure we already had. We’re just looking to continue to get better every game.”

The Fight will face the defending champion and 1-2 Command at 4:30 p.m. Friday at Yale in the first WPLL semifinal. The Brave and Pride play the second semifinal at Yale at 8 p.m. The championship is 2 p.m. Sunday at US Lacrosse Headquarters in Sparks, Md., and the Fight are the favorites to win their first crown.

“That'd be awesome,” Treanor said. “I played in the UWLX two years and played in the championship game for two years and never won. Being able to go to the WPLL and compete amongst the absolute best to be able to win a team championship would be really special and really exciting, especially to be able to play with the people I’m playing with now. I'm not sure I'll ever get that again, so hopefully we can get it done.”

The Fight are in the top position as a result of a terrific offseason and coming together quickly in the regular season. In addition to their bolstered attack from fall draft picks, they also added important pieces in the spring draft with Apuzzo, Lindsey Ronbeck of Florida, Elizabeth George of Princeton and Lindsey Ehrhardt of Loyola. They also grabbed one of the best values of the draft, Tewaaraton-winning goalie Megan Taylor, with their fifth-round selection.

“Shannon did an incredible job drafting our team and really starting to fill the spots we’ve been missing from the year prior,” Cummings said. “We go out there and have fun, and we want to play a creative and loose and exciting style of lacrosse and at the same time play good solid, fundamental lacrosse. We have the components to be able to do both, which is exciting. At the end of the day, we just love to play and love who we’re playing with, and that’s when you usually play your best.”

Seven players on the Fight — more than any other WPLL team — were among final 36 who competed at the Team USA training camp in June. Apuzzo, Cummings, Dowd, Mercer, Ohlmiller, Zoe Stukenberg and Treanor trained for three days together with the U.S. before kicking off the WPLL season.

“We have four attackers who are in the U.S. pool and a couple middies and a couple defenders,” Cummings said. “We are really fortunate to have that ability to grow chemistry in a U.S. training camp and WPLL games as well. It’s a great advantage for us.

“In the Richmond game and Hopkins game, coming off three straight days of playing together, you start to figure each other out and what each other likes to do, and that’s half the battle when you’re playing with new people — figuring who’s going to move when and what their tendencies are and trying to play off of that,” Cummings continued. “The more we can continue to play together, on our team and the various teams, that helps us in WPLL play and also build toward [the] 2021 [world championship], where different people are starting to work well together.”

Working together has been the key to the Fight’s success. They are quick to note that they are not just a collection of top talent.

“I think with a lot of talent, it's actually really hard unless you have people that like to share their own success and like to share the ball,” Treanor said. “Why it works is because we are playing with all players — even the middies with Taylor and different people — everyone on the team likes to share their success and share the ball, so it becomes a lot easier to have great offense when you have people like that. Other than that, I think if you have a lot of talent, it can be really hard to coach if they don't like to share the ball and share their success.”

The Fight’s defense has also played better this year. In three games, they have allowed only 25 goals.

“We’re just finishing plays,” Mercer said. “Not only are we coming up with great stops — and our goalies have been amazing — but we’re now finishing the play. We’re clearing the ball and getting it to our middies and getting into the offense, working it and looking for a good shot. Last summer, we made stops but didn’t necessarily finish the play.”

The Fight are itching to get another game together. They haven’t played in two weeks after they had a bye and then last Saturday’s games at Hofstra had to be canceled due to 112-degree temperatures on the turf field.

“When we get back into it, I think one of the keys actually is the chemistry that we already have,” Treanor said. “You don't really practice a lot so normally, it's really hard to play with new players that you haven't had a chance to play with before. But a lot of us play together for the U.S., so we have this already set chemistry. We can go to another level and try new things. We are on the same page already, so that's been really helpful so far.”

In the Command, the Fight will be facing a team that has a core of players with last year’s winning experience. The rebuilt Fight, though, have assembled what many in the league think is the best collection of talent.

“People say that, but you look at everyone else’s roster and they’re just as talented,” Cummings said. “There are incredible people on each team. We’re all pretty evenly matched at this point.”

Treanor has enjoyed her first look at the league. It has united her on the field with Apuzzo, whom she coached at Boston College, and several of her U.S. team hopefuls.

“While in college a lot of the talent is spread out, here there's only five teams,” Treanor said. “It’s the best in the world post-college, so every game's exciting. Every game has superstars, and it’s really fun to watch and play in it.”

The Fight enjoyed a major turnaround through the regular season. If they can win two games this weekend, they will complete their perfect season on top of the WPLL.

“I love to compete,” Cummings said. “When I’m playing and we’re playing in games that matter, you want to win. I think it would be awesome, especially to come from the year. We had last year, where we barely made the [playoffs], to being the No. 1 seed. Hopefully, we can go far in the playoffs. It would just be a real treat. We don’t play a ton of games, but there’s so much work that goes into being ready to play the few games we do, and so championships and winning it all at the end is always a nice reward for the work you put in.”

It’s just where Mercer was hoping the Fight would be all those months ago when this year’s team started to be assembled.

“We know that anybody can beat anybody,” Mercer said. “That’s across the board. Every team is so talented and has amazing players. The standings almost don’t ever tell the true story. Anyone can win on any given day. That’s just the league, and the great players that are a part of it.”