The cross-town rivalry continued as the Phillips Academy and Andover High School as ultimate teams met for the annual under the lights game to conclude the season. The Phillips team came out to win the game 13-6. Even though the team held the lead the whole game, “it never felt like we were ahead and every point was hard fought. If you hadn’t seen the scoreboard, you wouldn’t have been able to tell which team was ahead,” according to Coach Hoenig. The end of the season ultimate game between Phillips Academy and Andover High is called The Andover Cup. The Andover Cup started three years ago, and for the past three years the game has been played at Andover High. The damp field and gusty winds were a huge factor of the game. For the first few points, the strong winds impacted the strategies of the game, because both teams had difficulties even with short passes. Coach Hoenig was “surprised and impressed that [the players] had fewer drops, fewer bad passes, better throws and catches overall” in the given conditions. The Phillips team played mostly person-on-person defense to isolate matchups. Coach Hoenig said, “We did end up coming down with riskier throws than Andover High, but fortunately we had good jumpers.” Co-Captain Eli Grober ’09 was not present at the game, but Co-Captain Matt Turiano ’08 did a fantastic job leading the team, and many of players fired up to play stepped up to fill Grober’s position. According to the Ultimate Players Association, the Phillips Academy Ultimate Team is ranked 34th in the nation of 368 registered high schools, just two spots short of the Andover High team. “Virtually everyone who played had the best game of the season, or even the best game of their life,” said Coach Hoenig. The co-captain of the Phillips Ultimate team two years ago Peter Kalmakis ’06, while watching the game exclaimed, “Wow. Dunkin [Crystal ’10]is having the best game of his life!” The Andover Cup was the last game for the six graduating seniors: Nathaniel Miller, Andrew Richardson, Thomas Smyth Nathan Thomas, Matthew Turiano, and Joseph Wilkin.
