Andover Water Polo opened its season with a loss on Saturday against Deerfield, the top team and defending champions of the league. Later that day Andover squared off against Northfield Mount Hermon and won, 16-6, behind the offense of Conor McAullife ’10. Despite the loss, Andover was satisfied with its effort against an always-strong Deerfield team. Andover started with solid defense and some stunning saves from goalie Dan Larson ’11. Defensive stops contributed to turnovers in Andover’s favor, and goals from McAuliffe, Curtis Hon ’10, Andrew Fraser ’10 and Austen Novis ’11 gave the Big Blue a 4-2 lead at the end of the first half. “The team worked well as a unit,” said Matt Mahoney ’11. “Everything flowed well.” But fatigue set in during the second half, and Deerfield rebounded with five goals to take a commanding lead. After back-and-forth play for two more quarters, Deerfield finally overpowered the Anodver defense with three goals late in the fourth quarter. The loss was not without some positive aspects, however. Solid defense from Will Falk-Wallace ’10 and several more goals by Mahoney, Hon and McAuliffe kept the team in the game. “In the three years I’ve played, this was the best I’ve seen the team play in their first game,” said returning goalie Larson. Coach David Fox was also pleased. “Our active, swarming defense and our ability to execute good creative plays gave us this strong start,” he said. The strong start carried over to the NMH game. NMH held even with Andover in the first quarter, but goals from Alex Nanda ’11, McAuliffe and Hon gave the team an 8-4 lead at half. Aggressive and persistent defense from Nick Camarda ’12, David Thwaites ’11, Falk-Wallace and Novis, along with superb saves from goalie Andrew Wilson ’12 kept NMH from scoring. Ben Morris ’11, Nanda, Alex Smachlo ’11, Calvin Aubrey ’12 and McAuliffe scored eight goals between them in the second half. “Preseason definitely helped us play well and prepared us,” said Larson after the season’s first two games. On Wednesday, Andover hosted Exeter and looked completely different from the team that played on Saturday. Exeter dominated the first quarter, scoring five goals. After some motivational words from Fox, Andover came out stronger in the second quarter and held even with Exeter, as McAuliffe added one goal late in the second to make the score 6-1. Exeter dominated the second half on both offense and defense, scoring eight goals in the third quarter alone. Andover’s lone two goals that quarter were from Falk-Wallace and Hon, making the score 14-3. Andover ignited in the 4th quarter when Fraser, Nanda, McAuliffe and Novis combined for five goals. The late surge was not enough to overcome the huge deficit, however, and the game ended in a 14-8 defeat. Next weekend Andover will face Loomis and Suffield.
