Co-Captain Henry Kennelly ’13 set the tone for Andover Boys Water Polo’s game against Deerfield with the first goal of the match. Co-Captain Travis Bouscaren ’14 followed with six goals of his own, but Andover’s efforts fell just short, and the team suffered a 10-7 loss.
On Wednesday, Andover ended its season with a 13-8 loss to Exeter.
“As the [Deerfield] game picked up, we rose to the occasion, but we need to come out strong during the beginning,” said Bouscaren. “In order to get less exclusions, we need to help our two meter defense player by dropping back when the ball is passed into the set. We need to continue playing press defense as well as trying to block the passing lanes.”
Chris Li ’15 said, “Travis had the most goals, but it was an overall team effort. We got the ball to different places on the offense, and it was one of the best games we played all season…However, we were really careless in the first quarter and got lots of ejections.”
Andover totaled nine ejections during the game: five in the first quarter, three in the second and one in the third.
“The personal fouls came because the officiating was good—they were calling the game as it should be called, not the way we usually see it called. So I was impressed that our young and inexperienced team made the adjustments and stayed in the game,” said Coach David Fox.
Li was impressed with the team’s improvement from previous games, despite the 10-7 loss.
“Communication is something the team has been trying to work on all year. We need to know where everyone is during the game. That being said, this was our most improved game. We knew what to do, and understood the situation,” Li said.
He continued, “We did what we worked on in practice very well: six on five was played well, [and we] got a couple goals off of 3-3. Since we were more aware of our position in pool, it meant [we got] a better awareness of what we were doing.”
In its game against Exeter, Andover failed to make make necessary changes from the Deerfield game and lost 13-8.
“In some ways we worked on the things we needed to improve on, and we fell back on other things. Our communication wasn’t the strongest, and we were stagnant with the ball,” said Li.
After a disappointing end to the 2012 season, a young Andover Boys Water Polo team hopes to use this rebuilding year to improve next season.
