After falling in double overtime to Belmont Hill last week, Andover bounced back with a decisive 10-5 win over New Hampton on Saturday and a 9-8 overtime win over Northfield Mount Hermon on Wednesday.
“[Against New Hampton], we possessed the ball for much of the first half, and our offense put on a clinic,” said Will Young ’14, a close-defenseman.
Andover shut out New Hampton and ended the first half with an 8-0 lead. Andover let up a bit in the second half though, and New Hampton came out with newfound energy.
“[New Hampton] capitalized on some of our penalties and began to show why they were 2-0 coming into the game,” added Young. “Despite our inexperienced group on defense, we held together and got the 10-5 win.”
Tim Bulens ’15 said, “Our attack struggled to sync with the midfield against Belmont Hill, but against New Hampton, both the attack and the midfield functioned as one unit.”
“The goals were split evenly between the two, and every starter had at least one goal. As usual Foster Leboeuf ’15 has continued to be a huge threat when dodging from behind, while [Co-Captain] Austin Gaiss’s [’14] 97 mph shot is just scary,” he continued.
Clark Perkins ’14 made several saves while the offense passed the ball around the New Hampton defense for great shot opportunities.
“Our first half against New Hampton consisted of the best lacrosse we have played all season. We ran our offense well, played solid team defense, and Clark Perkins made some timely saves,” wrote Jack Katkavich ’13 in an e-mail to The Phillipian.
He added, “Our team showed some great depth by getting contributions from seven different goal scorers. As for great performances, [Young] was able to keep their best offensive player at bay for the majority of the game, allowing him to only score two points late.”
On Wednesday, coming off its win over New Hampton, Andover faced NMH, a team it lost to last spring.
Andover came up with a 4-2 lead at the end of the first quarter, yet the team stumbled and turned the ball over too much in the second half, which resulted in a 5-5 tie at halftime.
The game went back and forth after halftime. In the fourth quarter, Andover and NMH continued to trade goals, and the game went into overtime.
Near the end of overtime, Andover’s defense made a last minute stand as Patrick Daly ’15 cleared the ball to Lebeouf. Lebeouf drove down the alley, drawing his man, and then dished the ball to Co-Captain Larken Kemp ’13 on the crease. Kemp dunked the ball over the goalie and into the goal, putting Andover up 9-8 with 12 seconds left.
With next to no time left, NMH could not answer with its own goal, and Andover emerged victorious.
“Heading into a hostile environment, it was good to see the team respond heading into the fourth quarter and get a much needed win,” Kemp said.
Andover has both a game this Friday against Dexter, as well as a game against Lawrenceville at Harvard Stadium on Saturday.
