In front of an unrelenting crowd and against one of his toughest opponents of the season, Captain Shaun Stuer ’09 gained a pin on his highly skilled opponent in 52 seconds, earning Andover its second victory of the NMH match. Despite the stunning victory, Andover ended up losing the meet 44-33. The NMH wrestlers proved to be a worthy adversary to the #2 ranked Andover squad. The first match began with Sam Dodge ’09 at 171 lbs, who earned a pin in the third period. Andover lost the next bout at 189 lbs, but Stuer racked up a first period pin when he moved up a weight class. NMH won two out of the next three matchups and took a 24-18 lead. With Andover trailing, Colton Dempsey ’12 stepped onto the mat against the number one wrestler from New England Championships last year in his weight class. After three long periods, Dempsey earned a regular decision. Dempsey said afterwards, “I went into the match knowing I had nothing to lose. I was thinking that I wanted it more than him, and after the first takedown, I had a huge confidence boost.” Duncan Crystal ’10 followed up with a win by disqualification, and Ryan Gaiss ’11 then pinned his opponent with four seconds left in the third period. This gave Andover a 33-24 lead with four bouts to go. Unfortunately, NMH swept these four, and went on to win the dual meet 44-33. There was no time for Andover to take a break, as they traveled three hours to Deerfield the next day for a quad meet. They rebounded perfectly; sweeping the meet and losing only three bouts. Andover beat Deerfield 51-18, Hyde-Connecticut 62-18 and Hyde-Maine 70-12. Stuer went 3-0 with 2 pins to stay undefeated on the year, and Scott Sanderson ’09 was 3-0 with 3 pins. Dempsey, Crystal, Gaiss, Ben Elder ’09 and Dodge were all 3-0 as well. Elder’s 3-1 win in overtime against Deerfield sealed that victory for Andover. This past Wednesday, Andover faced a routinely tough Tabor Academy team, but the day belonged to Andover, dominating the meet and cruising to a 60-13 victory. Coming up this Saturday, Andover is hosted by Loomis-Chaffee, as they try to bring their record to 10-2 on the year.
