Andover Dominates Choate in First Meet of Year

With an average split time of 56.20 seconds, Andover’s A-relay team narrowly beat Choate by 0.23 seconds to win the 400-Yard Freestyle Relay. This race closed out the first meet for Andover Girls Swimming & Diving, which resulted in a 109-77 win on Saturday. This was Andover’s first of only two home meets this season.
According to Swimming Co-Captain Grace Hitchcock ’20, the team did an excellent job of scoring from the outside lanes in addition to the top seed.

Hitchcock said, “We had a lot of widespread strength in each of our individual races, so it wasn’t necessarily just the person in the middle lane, the first seed, scoring the points for the team. I think what really carried us to have such a strong lead over Choate throughout the whole meet was that we had our second and third seeded girls performing incredibly well and scoring extra points. I call it ‘smoke from the outside.’”

After a close loss to Choate last year, the team had high expectations and gained confidence from last week’s convincing win, according to Hannah Ono ’22.

“Especially since we lost to Choate this past season, this meet was a great kick-off to the season. Although we lost a lot of Seniors, we won many close races even with a young team. As a smaller team this year, I’m looking forward to what this season will bring,” wrote Ono in an email to The Phillipian.
In addition to doing more dryland during preseason, the team used the extra time before the first meet to do more focused and targeted sets, according to Hitchcock.

“We’ve been doing more dryland outside, working with [Christopher Collins, Strength and Conditioning Coach] during the preseason, so that outside of the pool work is a bit more focused and targeted towards the muscles that we’ll specifically be using during swimming… I think, on average, our daily practices have been a bit harder than they were last year, so I think that we’re getting in more difficult workouts early on in the season,” said Hitchcock.

With Saturday being the only home meet with both the boys and girls competing, it served as the meet dedicated to the Seniors on both teams.

“It was the Senior meet, [but] it was also our first meet. I think that was nice, because then we have the whole season ahead of us,” said Ingrid Appen ’22.

“It certainly was nostalgic, it’s really hard to believe that it’s been four years on the team already, and that this is my last season with them, so definitely a bittersweet moment,” added Hitchcock.
The team will race Suffield and Peddie on Saturday.