Euan Luke ’21, who usually plays seventh seed for Andover, played sixth during Wednesday’s match.
Second seed Jack Lee ’20 hit a backhand drop-shot winner off a high boast to win his match 3-0. Lee’s victory helped Boys Squash defeat Milton 5-2 on Wednesday, bringing the team’s record up to 3-1.
According to Lee and seventh seed Sid Sinha ’21, the team stayed consistent and focused.
Lee said, “I think we played a lot of long rallies, didn’t make a lot of mistakes, which proved to our consistency on court. We all came on, and most of us won our matches. I think we just played really well as a team.”
“I’d say both teams had a bit of an obstacle because one player was injured from each team, but all the players just came together, and we won all the matches we should have. A couple of matches that could’ve gone either way, we unfortunately lost. But overall I think it was very evenly matched. What we did well is we just stuck to the basics, kept our game calm. We were peaceful, and we ended up coming up on top,” said Sinha.
Erik Wang ’21, who usually plays third seed for Andover, suffered a knee injury; as a result, the majority of the roster moved up one seed.
Sinha said, “Alex [Bernhard ’19] and Jack retained their positions, but Arthur [Nguyen ’22] and below all moved up, and I think Arthur played really well considering last week he was number six and he jumped all the way up to number three this week. I think he almost won his match, and he played a really great game, and we’re all really proud of him.”
Milton’s team, according to Lee and Nguyen, was a very strong and skilled opponent, as the games were well-fought and evenly-matched.
Lee said, “Their three and four were really good for our three and four. They were pretty evenly matched. We had really good games all around. Arthur and Xander [Schwartz ’19] specifically had really hard matches. They played really well, their opponents were really good.”
“They just were able to run really fast. You had to hit really long rallies with them and just play it out,” added Nguyen.
After falling to Milton 3-4 last season, Andover was able to return this year with a win, benefiting greatly from the team’s young talent, according to Lee.
“I think our team this year is young, but we’re all really talented players. I think as the season develops, we’ll all become more mature and do much better than even now, and I think our team can go really far this year,” said Lee.
After already playing three matches in the season, the team is able to prepare better for its following matches, according to Nguyen.
Nguyen said, “We knew how to handle our matches better. We knew how to prepare each other for these matches better after learning from our previous matches.”
According to Sinha and Nguyen, the team hopes to work on its technique and fitness.
Sinha said, “I think maybe just we’re going to stick to the basics because that’s what works for the team as a whole and keep our shots steady, keep our movement strong and maybe our fitness, which we’re not very excited to work on but we have to do it.”
“[We hope to improve on] our discipline and being able to see our game plan really well and stick to it, even when emotions are really high,” added Nguyen.
Andover will face Brooks on January 7 at home.
Editor’s Note: Alex Bernhard is an Eighth Page Editor for The Phillipian
