With just over two minutes left in a second overtime, Captain Nekele McCall ’14 received a pass in front of the net. As the closing minutes waned, McCall juked her defender and rattled off a shot past the goalie to give Andover Girls Lacrosse the win against Northfield Mount Hermon (NMH) on Wednesday.
Andover remained calm under pressure, hanging on by the skin of its teeth in a hard-fought battle against NMH in double-overtime, eventually winning 13-12.
Earlier in the week at Groton, Andover struggled offensively in the first half, and a second-half surge was not enough to secure a win. Groton pulled away with a 9-14 victory.
“We just got off the bus, and we weren’t ready to warm up hard. That really showed in the first half because we had a lot of goals scored on us right away,” said Kelly McCarthy ’16.
Avoiding a similar sluggish start on the team’s game against NHM on Wednesday, Andover scored two points early, courtesy of McCall and Olivia Cabral ’14. Caroline Garrity ’15 and Morgan Hollowell ’14 then each added their own goals, but NMH hung tough.
Down 6-7 coming out of halftime, Hannah Burns ’15 put one in the back of the net to tie the game. Then Cabral finished off her hat-trick on an assist from Junior-standout Lexi Davidson ’17 to put Andover up.
In spite of Andover’s offensive fireworks, the girls found themselves down 10-11 with 1:35 left in rewgulation.
A clutch snipe from McCall found the top right corner of the net and tied up the game to give Andover a second life.
NMH scored quickly on a fast-break goal in overtime and looked to be closing in on a victory with 1:30 left on the clock.
At 1:02 left, McCall ran an isolation play, running strong to the net and ripping another goal, bringing the game back to a tie, 12-12.
Less than a minute into double-overtime sudden-death, McCall ended the game with a spectacular goal. She scored the last four goals for Andover and six in total.
On the victory, Amy Morin ’14 said, “I think we played 100 percent all the way through. It was a combination of realizing what we had to work on and then working on it and doing that in the game.”
Looking ahead, Andover hopes to carry the momentum from the thrilling, overtime win into this Saturday’s clash with Taft.
