Andover Girls Varsity Hockey Defeats Andover High But Falls Short to Winchendon

After a 10-0 win over Andover High School in a scrimmage on Saturday, Andover went into its game against Winchendon with too much confidence, according to Amelia Meyer ’21. The team fell to Winchendon 3-2. Its record now stands at 0-1.

Meyer said, “I think we all estimated that we were going to win the game and that was not a good way to come out onto the ice. Ultimately we should’ve prepared better… We didn’t capitalize on our opportunities [even though] we had a lot of shots in front of the net. We outshot them almost 3-1 in terms of shots ratio and they just, at the end of the day, put more pucks in the net.”

Andover has been focusing on its offensive strategies and conditioning in practice, according to Anne Averill ’23.

“We’ve been working on the power play and penalty kill a lot in practice, and the penalty kill has definitely been an area of strength for our team. We haven’t let up a penalty kill goal yet, which is really good, and then our power play still needs a bit of work. But I’m hoping we’ll continue to work on that in practice,” said Averill.

Molly MacQueen ’21 praised Anna Bargman ’21 for her continued effort throughout the game against Andover High.

“Bargman took a dive to save the puck and get it out of our zone, which our coach talked about in the locker room after. I think it just says a lot [about] her character and the character of the team. Even in a game where we were winning 10-0, she was really willing to put herself out there,” said MacQueen.

The team’s games on Friday and Saturday will serve as important determinants for setting the tone of the season, according to MacQueen.

MacQueen said, “I think how we respond on Friday and Saturday will be really important as to just set the tone for what kind of team we’ll be. Obviously we’re gonna have times like this where we don’t play as well as we know we can, but I think remembering the little things that we didn’t do well and overall growing together as a team and keeping up our chemistry and trust with each other [is important].”

Andover travel to Dexter Southfield on Friday and play Northfield Mount Herman at home on Saturday. The team will then leave for a tournament at Taft on Thursday.