In Andover Girls Basketball’s second game of the season against Loomis Chaffee, Captain Emma Kelley ’17 scored 50 percent of her 3-point shots, completing the game with 22 total points. Despite this athletic feat, Andover fell 63-55 to Loomis. The team also lost 56-25 to Worcester Academy on Wednesday.
Against Loomis, Andover was determined to be more proactive on defense and convert defensive plays into offensive scores.
Emily Hardy ’20 said, “We had two goals going into the game against Loomis. The first was to out-rebound them. By getting more rebounds, we could give ourselves more opportunities for second chance points. Our second goal was to execute our plays on offense.”
Head Coach Lani Silversides said, “[Our team] had a great game versus a very competitive Loomis team. We went into the game with a goal of out-rebounding the other team and we did this, out-rebounding them 43-31.”
Kelley and Casey Yarborough ’17 led the team in rebounds totaling eight and six, respectively. Although Andover was able to perform well defensively, it was unable to match Loomis’s offensive prowess in the final few minutes of the game and ultimately lost by a margin of eight points.
Hardy said, “We worked on running our offense with as few dribbles as possible, and we knew we would need to dribble as few times as possible. For those reasons we were able to stay with Loomis throughout the whole game.”
Kelley said, “After working on refining our offense throughout last week, we had a lot of really good looks off of cuts and rolls that we didn’t have against Choate. We had less turnovers and no 30-second violations.”
Andover tried out a new defensive strategy, a full court press, against Loomis. It created pressure for Loomis to bring the ball across the half-court line so as to not violate the 10-second rule.
“We got to try out our defensive press and it worked very well,” said Laura Bilal ’17. “Like everything new there are some kinks that need to be worked out, but for one of the first times running, it we executed well.”
Kelley said, “We didn’t get many steals off of it, but we definitely frazzled Loomis and slowed down their offense. They performed really well in the first half on the three line, but we began to play tighter to force bad shots.”
Later in the week, Andover fell to Worcester Academy at home. Worcester boasted the tenth best recruit in U.S.A. Girl’s Basketball, and held Andover to a meager 25 points.
Post-Graduate Corina Lindsay ’16 contributed significantly to Andover’s offense, sinking two 3-pointers in the first half. The team, however, was unable to build on its momentum and lost 56-25.
Bilal said, “Even though we have had a tough few losses, we aren’t going to let this define the rest of the season. We are going to come back stronger and work hard every day in practice and in games. I think this attitude will allow us to push each other further towards success. We are also motivated to win as a team and have fun this season.”
Andover looks forward to the Groton Holiday Basketball Tournament this weekend.
Editor’s Note: Emma Kelley is a Features Editor andLaura Bilal is a Sports Editor for The Phillipian.