Andover Girls Soccer’s camouflage psych is one of the team’s favorites.
This past Friday, the Andover Girls Varsity Soccer team walked around campus donning various forms of camouflage, including jackets, leggings, bandanas, and even slippers, as part of their psych in preparation for their game against Northfield Mount Hermon the following day. An annual tradition, the camouflage psych is one of the favorites among team members.
Co-Captain Elise MacDonald ’19 said, “We do it every year, and we like to save it for one of our last games because it’s everyone’s favorite psych. It just gets everyone really hyped. Not everyone on the team participates in every psych, but for the camo psych everyone participates. It looks kind of ridiculous, but people… always ask me why I’m dressed like this and it gets a lot of attention for the team and the game.”
Many of the team members spend a lot of time preparing for the camouflage psych, curating as many unique and fun camouflaged articles of clothing as possible. Some notable pieces of clothing from this psych included camouflage onesies, bandanas, and fleece hoodies.
“Preparing for the psych is always so much fun. If people don’t have clothes we always order things off of Amazon. The morning of the psych a lot of the team always meets in [Paresky Commons] and we get breakfast and exchange clothes to get ready for our team picture… This year Maddy [Silveira ’20] and I bought camo slippers for the psych. There are always a ton of bucket hats and cool jackets that people have too,” wrote team member Isabella Di Benedetto ’20 in an email to The Phillipian.
Maddy Silveira ’20 and Isabella Di Benedetto ’20 flaunt matching camouflage slippers.
The psych is an opportunity not only for the team to show off their unique camouflage pieces, but also to bring them closer together. According to team member Kylie Quinlan ’20, the psych is a chance to bond with team members in a show of school spirit.
“Psychs in general are a really cool opportunity to show our unity throughout campus just to get excited for games, and the camo psych is one in particular where we always go all out. So, whenever we see each other across campus it’s really great,” said Quinlan.
According to Quinlan, the creative fashion choices that many team members make to prepare for the psych often draw the attention of many different students on campus, attracting more students to their games and boosting team spirit.
“They just get people excited for the game and raise team morale, and also people know when you’re wearing some sort of psych attire, they’ll always ask you, ‘When’s your game?’ So we get more people to show up to games too,” said Quinlan.
