With five seconds left on the game clock and down by one point, a Rivers attacker broke away from the Andover Boys Lacrosse defense and ripped a shot on goal. Under pressure, Andover goalie Eugene Yoon ’18 made a game winning save to secure a 9-8 win for Andover on Wednesday.
“Yoon was a standout in the game against the Rivers School, making key saves throughout the game to lead Andover to a 9-8 win in its first game of the season,” said Sawyer Moody ’19.
The team played a strong game overall, with an effective offensive plan, although its defense picked up on things to improve on, according to defender Kevin Milkowski ’18.
Milkowski said, “The first half started slow, but in the second half of the game we picked it up and moved the ball and communicated well. Moving forward, we need to work on sliding better and sliding smarter more in control from a defensive standpoint. Sawyer and Colby [Gendron ’18] had good games, but overall nobody really had a bad game, and both our offense and defense played well.”
The team brought a tough and relentless mindset and persevered as the game progressed, continuing to make hustle plays on defense and finding fluidity on offense, according to players on the team.
In an email to The Phillipian, Captain Larson Tolo ’18 wrote, “We started out fairly slow, as the other team did a good job of containing our offense and finding holes in our defense, but during the second quarter we found our groove and began playing the brand of lacrosse that we have been working on since preseason. Our offense started finding the back of the net, our ride was smothering and caused them to throw the ball away a lot, and our defense played very fundamentally sound. However, what made the biggest difference was our mindset; we would not settle for anything short of a win. Thus, our team did an amazing job of hustling for every play, making some big hits, and doing what what necessary to get the ball into our offensive zone.”
After the first quarter, the Andover defense was able to make changes to close the gaps and stop the momentum of the Rivers offense.
Tolo said, “At Rivers today we played a very tough and tenacious game, which helped us to secure a very close win. We started out fairly slow, as the other team did a good job of containing our offense and finding holes in our defense.”
Andover enters the season with positive momentum, winning its second scrimmage and the match on Wednesday against Rivers. The team hopes to continue building upon the hard work that was implemented during practice this past week.
Moody said, “We could have maybe been better on the accuracy of our shots, but, overall, it was a really solid game… As a team, we just want to get better every day and improve on little things and the winning will follow suit.”
Editor’s Note: Larson Tolo is a Copy Editor for The Phillipian.
