Tom Daly ’16 swiftly pulled out a one-point victory over his Northfield Mount Hermon (NMH) opponent in in an extremely close meet last Friday. Andover squeezed in a victory against NMH for the first time in five years.
“NMH is always a big rivalry. We were certainly pumped up and ready to take it to them this year. We worked pretty hard and were hungry for a win, which we got from a total team effort,” wrote Justin Muchnick ’16 in an email to The Phillipian.
The 36-31 victory kicked off a successful week for Andover, finishing with an impressive 4-1 record and falling 52-23 only to seasoned opponent Tabor on Wednesday. At the quad match on Saturday, Andover used its home field advantage to sweep Deerfield, Hyde School Maine and Hyde School Connecticut 62-13, 62-19 and 61-15 respectively.
“This was a good meet for us to have. It probably won’t be our hardest meet of the year, but it reveals to us some of what we’re made of as a team, and can be good for building confidence going into what might be our toughest week before postseason,” said Henry Curtis ’15 in an email to The Phillipian.
Andover’s five pins against NMH set the tone for the rest of the weekend. Co-Captain Christian Vallis ’14 finished his opponent in the first 30 seconds, and Dan McGurl ’14 was able to dig deep to pin his opponent in the third minute of the match.
Taking control of the quad meet the next day, Andover lost only three matches and pinned four of its opponents against Deerfield.
“Many of the younger wrestlers contributed strong matches against good opponents and came up clutch,” wrote James Palmer ’14 in an email to The Phillipian.
Newcomer to the team Bennett Sherr ’17 had a breakout match against Hyde School Maine, pinning his opponent in the first 44 seconds.
Andover continued to show its strong ability to pin its opponents against Hyde School Maine, in which it pinned five of its eight opponents and took home six victories.
Tabor, however, ended Andover’s five-game win streak on Wednesday. “We are facing one of the tougher teams in New England,” said Curtis.
With an impressive 7-3 record, Andover hopes to regain its footing and winning spirit at its quad match this Saturday against Belmont Hill, Roxbury Latin and Loomis Chaffee.
“If everyone does as well as they can in their own personal matches and commits to wrestling aggressively we may have a chance to take it to them,” said Curtis.
