A long bus ride and rainy weather affected Andover’s ability to start strong against Deerfield, according to Head Coach Martha Fenton ’83 and Captain Carly Kreytak ’20.
Fenton said, “Energy was low today – the conditions were tough and we didn’t have enough of a jump in our step to keep up with a fast and skilled [Deerfield] team.”
“It was pouring rain and [Deerfield was] a really good team, which we expected. It was a battle… It’s hard to come off a long bus ride but we had a really good warmup and we tried really hard the whole game,” added Kreytak.
According to Coach Fenton and Kiera Suh ’22, the team struggled with communication and connectivity.
Fenton said, “When we are most successful, we are talking to each other and moving the ball quickly and with vision. Unfortunately, today we didn’t see as much of that. Our timing, spacing, and talking were all off today, and we were not able to generate much offense as a result.”
“We got caught up chasing the ball too much and a lot of our passes were easily intercepted,” said Suh.
However, against Nobles on Wednesday, Andover was able to use its previous loss as motivation to play stronger, and the team ended up getting its first shutout in five games.
“We came out really quick and strong, which was one of our focuses from last game. We were also able to capitalize on our corners and all three of our goals were off of corner shots,” said Suh.
Katie Wimmer ’21 added, “The energy was amazing— these end-of-the-season games are super important for us and beating Nobles was something we were very motivated to do. We worked really hard out there and that was one of the main reasons we were able to come away with the win.”
Andover will face Cushing on Saturday in its last home game of the year.