Heading into the second half with the game tied 4-4 against Deerfield, Sarah Rigazio ’18 fired a shot into the back of the net, scoring her first goal of the season and gaining the lead for Andover Girls Lacrosse. Despite Andover’s efforts to capitalize on Rigazio’s goal, the team ultimately lost 5-14. Last Friday, the team suffered a 18-0 loss to Nobles and Greenough. The two games brought Andover’s overall record to 0-2.
In the first half against Deerfield, midfielder Brooke Keough ’19 scored two goals, while Co-Captain Claire Kister ’16 and midfielder Beth Krikorian ’17 each scored one goal.
Andover’s inability to control ground balls and force turnovers prevented it from capitalizing on the team’s first half performance.
Rigazio said, “I think there are a lot of different things we need to work on, some being skill related and others being mental. We definitely need to win more battles off the draw, and pick the right time to shoot. A couple of times today we tried to force shots when a better option would’ve been to just maintain possession. Mentally, we need to just keep up the intensity and have full confidence for two whole halves.”
Earlier in the week, Nobles challenged Andover, testing the team’s agility and eventually topping Andover 18-0.
Midfielder Ashley Tucker ’18 said, “Even though Nobles was a really good team, I don’t think that we started out playing the way we wanted to in our first game. The effort was there, but we weren’t playing smart. As the score continued to go up, I think this got worse as we became increasingly frantic, which led to turnovers in transition and in the offensive end, as well as chaos in the defensive end.”
In an email to The Phillipian, midfielder Ananda Kao ’18 wrote, “We came out strong, with our defense playing really well throughout the beginning of the game. Ultimately, we struggled with picking up their cutters, especially inside the eight-meter fan, which gave them many quick goals.”
Looking forward, the team will continue to work on refining its strategies and improving its technique.
Tucker said, “It’s still early in the season, so we have a lot of room for growth. Specifically, we have been working on a few plays once we get the ball settled on offense. Hopefully, with continued practice those things will help us out a lot. We also need to work on our draw controls and ground balls since we didn’t get very many versus Nobles.”
Andover hopes to convert its hard work during practices into a win on the field this Friday against Pingree.
