Football Suffers Second Loss of the Season

Within the first minutes of the second quarter, Kevin Diaz PG’20 scored a touchdown, bringing the score to 7-7 against Loomis Chaffee. By the end of the half, Andover was leading 18-14, with touchdowns from Co-Captain Jake Jordan ’20 and Mark Witt ’20. But despite the team’s initial lead, Andover lost 28-18 to Loomis, putting its record at 0-2.

The team found that keeping its energy and momentum up during the second half was a challenge because of the weather and the team’s mental outlook on the proceedings of the game, according to Wesley Durrett ’20.

Durrett said, “I think part of being mentally defeated during the game was because of the heat; it was really hot. Everyone was feeling worn down, and I feel like we all gave up before it was even over. Since we weren’t in it mentally, our bodies started giving out. We couldn’t think about what we needed to do, so we made more physical mistakes because we couldn’t think it through properly.”

Although the team felt as if it did not have its best performance, both the defense and offense showed improvement from its previous game against Kent, according to Jake Ross PG’20.

“We’ve been working on a lot more passing and our offense during practice because we think we have a good defense, and if we work hard then our defense will keep the game in check. Our offense, from the first to the second week [of practice] improved a lot, so if we keep it up we’ll be in really good shape,” said Ross.

The numerous injuries which occurred during the game was another significant factor in the team’s loss, according to Baron Abrishami ’21 and Ross.

“I think with a lot of people going down during the game with injuries was a blow to the team morale. But we just have to have the mentality where the next guy has to step up. I think by the next game we’ll have that [mentality] and we’ll be very good and tough to beat,” said Ross.

Despite the disheartening end to Andover’s game against Loomis, Andover remains optimistic as it seeks to improve its pass coverage, as well as blocking on the offensive line, according to Abrishami and Ross.

“There are still things in the team that’s not clicking, and that’s okay because it’s only week two. As the season goes on we’re gonna progress, we’re gonna get better and better every day, and we’re all taking it one week at a time,” said Abrishami.

“Even though we were upset that we lost we all still support each other and no one blamed anyone. We went in as a team, we lose as a team,” said Ross.

Andover will travel to Salisbury this Saturday.