Boys Water Polo

Boys Water Polo Beat St. John’s for the Second Time

Co-Captain Nick Isenhower ’18 had 7 shots and 4 goals.

After blocking a shot, goalie Thomas Glover ’18 passed the ball to Neil Simpson ’19, who went down on a fast break to score. Andover Boys Water Polo went on to defeat St. John’s Prep with a final score of 16-9, putting its season record at 10-2.

Andover moved the ball quickly and purposefully resulting in the fast breaks where Andover scored the majority of its goals, according to Nick Schoeller ’18 and Glover.

Glover said, “We did a really good job on fast breaks. We also as a team did a good job moving around and getting open on offense.”

Schoeller said, “On offense, we did a good job in transition. I think we had pretty good awareness. St. John’s also has a very hard press defense, so we had to focus on absorbing the pressure on offense and still making good passes. We had some trouble with it at first, but I think near the end we started slowing our offense down and focused on making safer passes.”

Playing the perimeter of the pool also proved to be a crucial aspect of Andover’s success, according to Sam Donchi ’20.

“One thing that the team did well offensively was moving the ball around the perimeter and running drives. One of our main issues in the past was having a stagnant offense, but that was not the case in this game,” said Donchi.

On defense, Andover pressured St. John’s Prep’s offense, which caused them to take wide or weak shots, according to Glover. They also utilized a heavy press throughout the game to slow St. John’s offensive attack, according to Co-Captain Nick Isenhower ’18.

“On defense we pretty much shut down St. John’s. While they still got a lot of shots off, our press defense caused all of the shots to be from way outside and overall pretty weak,” said Glover.

Isenhower said, “Our defense did well with the heavy press and crash in hole. We adjusted to a heavy outside-shooting team with shot blocking and a heavy press.” 

Looking ahead, Andover hopes to improve on its awareness on the defensive side and converting scoring opportunities off the pass, according to Isenhower.

“In terms of improvement, we need to keep our awareness up, continue to run plays on the fly, and get some good shots off the pass to catch the goalie off guard,” said Isenhower.

Andover will play at Deerfield on Sunday with hopes of adding to its winning streak.

Editor’s Note: Nick Schoeller is a Copy Editor for The Phillipian.