Deftly crossing up his defender, Co-Captain Dallion Johnson ’20 broke free and drained an open three-pointer. Despite its efforts, Boys Basketball lost 67-50 against Cushing on Wednesday. In its weekend competitions, Andover split games against Worcester and Deerfield, losing to Worcester 77-57 and beating Deerfield 62-57. Andover’s record now stands at 2-12.
Against Worcester on Friday, the team came out flying in the first half, but weren’t able to finish the game well, according to Johnson.
“In the first half, we played well and we played hard but we just have to finish in the second half,” said Johnson. “We needed to play the same way that we did in the first half and carry on throughout the game.”
The game was close at halftime but Worcester’s run in the second half ended up sealing Andover’s defeat, according to Matteo Whelton ’20 and Akshay Mundra ’18.
“We were only down a couple points at halftime but we ended up losing by a lot more… because we didn’t recover from when they went on the run,” said Whelton.
In an email to The Phillipian, Mundra wrote, “When we play against talented teams like Worcester, we have to play hard for the whole game… I think we let up a little bit at the beginning of the second half, and they were able to go on a run that ended up being the difference in the game.”
Against Deerfield on Saturday, Andover utilized its previous knowledge from the game against Worcester to secure a close win, according to Mundra.
Mundra wrote, “We’ve been [in] a lot of situations where the game was close at the half, but we weren’t able to close it out. I think we’ve grown as a team from those losses, and our poise and ability to hit big shots down the stretch led us to a win [against Deerfield].”
“The lead we got in the first half gave us a big advantage and gave us the upper hand. Even though we didn’t play as well in the second half, the energy was there and we knocked down shots,” added Johnson.
In its game against Cushing, Andover was unable to mount a come back after a large lead early in the game. Despite the loss, Andover looks to bounce back, according to Johnson.
“Most of the time after games, we know we shouldn’t have lost that game or we shouldn’t have lost to that team so that makes us go out, work harder in practice, and play harder in games,” said Johnson.
Andover has learned from its losses, using tape review after every game, and the team hopes to come back stronger in future games, according to Mundra and Whelton.
“To be on this team you have to love to compete, and loving to compete means hating to lose. With that being said, there’s something to be learned from every loss,” wrote Mundra, “We’re a young team with a lot of young talent, and I think experience we’ve gained from our early struggles will help us close out bigger games later in the year.”
“No one likes to lose,” said Whelton. “But we learn from it and we try to improve by looking at tape after every game. We try to learn from what we did wrong to help us get some more wins.”
Andover will host Loomis Chaffee on Friday and travel to Noble and Greenough on Saturday.
