Boys Basketball Sports Winter Sports

Andover Suffers Big Losses to Choate and Exeter

Despite consistent three-point shooting from guards Eric Alperin ’15 and Robby Cerulle ’17 against Exeter on Wednesday, Andover Boys Basketball’s untimely turnovers and poor transition defense led to a 73-35 loss, dropping Andover to 2-7 on the season.

The Exeter loss was the second of two losses this past week, with the first one coming at the hands of a sharp-shooting Choate team 61-42.

Glazer was one of the few sources of offense in Andover’s game against Choate, with every starter besides Glazer struggling to put the ball in the basket. Glazer accounted for over half of the team’s points. After keeping the game close for most of the first half, Andover’s lackluster defense allowed Choate to pull away in the second half.

Multiple starters were disappointed by their lack of offensive firepower in the second half. Point guard Andrew Reavis ’17 said, “On Saturday, we played awful. [We] need to be better. [We] need to improve, and overall, we need to improve offensively.”

One of the bright spots from the loss was the play of the bench, which attempted to provide the offensive spark when the starters had gone cold. Cam Garfield ’17 scored the first points of his Varsity career, scoring six points in limited time at the end of the contest.

Forward Brendan Deorocki ’15 said, “We need to work on a lot — fixing our offensive spacing to get better shots, increasing overall effort, getting our hands on loose balls [and] putting up shots. We’ve been kind of lazy on both ends the past two games.”

Exeter’s press defense was too much for Andover’s ball handlers. The press led to a myriad of careless turnovers, allowing Exeter to hit transition threes on the fast break.

Andover players found it difficult to adjust to playing transition defense, not playing the ball closely enough and allowing easy shots for Exeter.

“Exeter gets credit, because they made their open opportunities. We struggled to keep their players in front, and we also weren’t really playing great help defense. We allowed them to find their spots and dictate the flow on our defensive end,” said Coach Terrell Ivory ’00.

Despite the efforts of center Nick Forti ’15, who scored a team-high ten points in the game, the team struggled to rebound without center Jake Nelson ’15, who was out with an ankle injury.

“[Nelson’s] very important to the team in transition play and rebounding, so his absence was a bad thing for us,” said forward Taylor Beckett ’17.

Andover plays at Milton Academy today, followed by a home game against Tabor on Saturday.