Jumping up for a block, Caleb Blackburn-Johnson ’22 smashed the ball down, winning the point. Andover faced Choate in its season opener at home this Saturday. The team secured a 3-0 victory, with scores of 25-16, 25-12, and 25-14 in each set.
According to Co-Captain Clay Briggs ’19, the team’s success allowed it to metaphorically “spear the boar,” as Choate’s mascot is the wild boar. According to Henrique Chamon ’21 and Jerry Shu ’21, Blackburn-Johnson and Colin McNamara-Bordewick ’21 stood out on the offense with their middle blocks in the front row.
Chamon added, “For our first game of the season, we destroyed Choate. We were really explosive, so it’s a good sign for the rest of our season. We were able to block anything that came our way, and just overall did a great job against them. Caleb and Colin in the front row had some amazing middle blocks. Just watching them was insane.”
“I think our offense played exceptional. The way that Caleb and Colin hunted the ball down over the net was great. Caleb has really long arms, so he’s able to really get up there and smash the ball down, and terrify the opponent,” added Shu.
On Monday, Andover faced Central Catholic at home in a scrimmage that resulted in a 2-2 tie. Because the game did not count towards Andover’s overall record, the team was able to experiment with new lineup combinations, according to Chamon.
Chamon said, “Because there were no consequences in the league we tried to test out different variations for set ups and rotation order. Players were able to play different positions with different people. Joe [Kacergis ’19] had a bunch of insane hits and [Co-Captain] Neil [Simpson ’19] is always insane as our setter. He always does a great job running to get balls.”
Andover Boys Volleyball will next face Wilbraham & Monson at home this Saturday.
Editor’s Note: The theme for Boys Varsity Volleyball’s quotes this week was “Hakuna Matata,” but it was not included in this article.
