STANDISH — All Lyndsay Merrill could do was watch.

As her Telstar softball teammates won a regional championship and suffered a near-miss loss in the state title game, Merrill could only cheer them on and hope for her chance a year later. In her freshman season, she suffered a knee injury during basketball and missed all of softball season.

“It was really hard,” said Merrill. “Softball is my favorite sport. It’s the thing I want to do in my future. I’ve been playing softball my whole life, and I was really looking forward to my freshman year. I opted for the surgery instead of the brace so I could come back the next year and have three strong years to play.”

The sacrifice and the wait may have been worth it. This year, Merrill hasn’t been a bystander. She’s been Telstar’s leading hitter and a standout shortstop. And when her team beat Georges Valley in the regional final for the second straight year, her teammates were cheering her on — as she scored the winning run on Hannah Morin’s seventh-inning single.

“It was so much fun,” said Merrill of being part of that regional final victory Tuesday. “I liked being part of it so much. It was so much fun. It was was just so awesome.”

Merrill watched her older sister Kayla make a splash with the softball team as a freshman. So when Lyndsay got to high school, she was looking forward to her own opportunity, but a “lay-up gone bad” during basketball season resulted in a serious knee injury, with a torn ACL and meniscus. She could have tried to play softball while using a brace, but chose to have the surgery right away and work for the following year.

“I said to her last year that if you’re going to miss one year in high school, you want it to be your freshman year,” Telstar coach Jim Lunney said. “There’s no question that we’re glad she missed last year (instead of another year).”

Merrill made up for lost time this year. She was Telstar’s lead-off hitter and led the team with a .549 batting average and 28 hits and runs scored. She also had 14 extra base hits. As a team, the Rebels scored 132 runs.

She’s also been exceptional at short, a gap Telstar needed to fill after shortstop/pitcher Candace Hall graduated.

“We hoped that she’d recover quickly,” said Lunney. “She sat out a long time. She didn’t play field hockey or basketball. She came back and she’s been an all-star. She’s tough, and she’s got a lot of range.”

Lyndsay and her sister were active at Frozen Ropes last summer and that gave Lyndsay a head start on her comeback. She was cleared from her injury in time to play field hockey in the fall but opted not to, saving herself instead for softball.

“I thought I was going to be rusty,” said Merrill. “After our first game of the season, I got some hits and played good in the field. I didn’t feel like I’d lost anything and just got back into it.”

She felt her knee was strong and had confidence in it, but she wasn’t sure whether she could be the player she once was. It didn’t take long to calm those concerns.

“I felt completely comfortable with my knee and was ready to get back and play and do my best and hopefully get some good hits,” she said. “I was a bit nervous in the beginning that maybe I wasn’t as good as I was , but I was.”

Though Telstar is a veteran team, it is still fairly young. Only TJ Cowin, Lindsay James and Sam Largess are senior starters. That hints at more good things to come for the Rebels. Merrill says she’s already improved significantly, and watching and observing last year helped enhance her knowledge of the game.

“Watching last year, I learned a lot about how certain hitters work and what I need to do in certain situations,” she said. “I learned a lot and I know what to do when I have to get it done.”

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