Sports

Andover Competes in NEPSUL Tournament, Placing 3rd Overall

The Andover Ultimate team traveled three hours north to St. Johnsbury, Vermont to attend the St. Johnsbury Academy Invitational in the NEPSUL division last weekend. The team played against six schools over two days, winning four of the six games. Andover beat Milton 12-6, Belmont Hill 13-2, Hotchkiss 13-7. The team took third place overall in the tournament, losing only to the strong first seeded Northfield Mount Hermon team by two points and losing by a point to the second, Chase Collegiate School, 9-10. Most of the players agreed, despite the 11-13 lost, they played their best against the very talented team of NMH. Co-Captain Eli Grober ’09 described the NMH game as “one of the best games we’ve played. NMH is undoubtedly the best team in our league, and we came very close to defeating them.” Earlier in the season, Andover lost 8-11 to NMH. Another memorable game was the win against Exeter. Arun Saigal ’09 said, “We started off slow and we were not completely on our grade, but in the second half we came out and played much smarter both offensively and defensively which led to the overall victory.” The team beat Exeter 11-8 on Saturday. Unfortunately, the momentum of the win on Saturday did not carry through to Wednesday for the last game of the season against Exeter. This time, Andover lost, 11-15. Saigal said, “We played well on offense, but did not get our act together for defense.” Saigal continued, “[Exeter] kept throwing the disk deep, and once they had possession of the disk, we had trouble getting the disk back.” The game was close, but Exeter prevailed in the end. The team will play the annual under-the-lights game against Andover High on Friday. Last year Phillips defeated Andover High 15 to 10.