Andover Girls Hockey Co-Captain Sophie Merageas ’20 had 33 saves against Cushing to help the team secure a 2-1 victory. This win extended Andover’s winning streak to four games. Andover also had a 4-1 win over St. Marks on Saturday. The team’s record now stands at 10-4 and is in seventh place going into playoffs.
Against Cushing, Anna Bargman ’21 and Gwyn Lapp ’22 brought in a goal in the second period, bringing energy into the third period, according to Nolan. In the third period, Kylie Quinlan ’20 scored the winning goal.
Nolan said, “We were heading into the intermission, and there were [about] 37 seconds left, and Anna Bargman made a really great pass to Gwyn Lapp, and Gwyn put a really nice shot past the goalie, which put us ahead… it really got our momentum going into the third period, which was really great.”
Against St. Marks, Andover created a lot of scoring opportunities, helping to boost its confidence, according to Indi Wagner ’22.
“I think that the energy was pretty good, especially since [that was] the third game that we’ve won in a row. We are getting back on our feet again after losing a few games, a few tough losses. I think that since we were able to put so many pucks in the net before, it was great to be able to score so many goals once again after,” Wagner said.
Lapp added, “There [were] two shifts in a row where we got both shifts in the goal, and after that, everyone really got into the game more mentally. Just the fact that we scored two goals very quickly, that momentum was just really good. It was definitely a morale booster.”
Andover was consistently playing hard and pushing the pace throughout the game against St. Marks, according to Liv Nolan ’20.
Nolan said, “It was nice how we never stopped pushing the pace and I think we need to learn to do that with every team because most of the teams we play are really great teams and they’re not just going to go away or give up after we score a couple goals.”
Despite the Andover’s recent success, the team needs to work on learning from previous games as they enter a tougher half of the season, according to Molly MacQueen ’21.
“We’ve won the last three games, but our season is only going to get harder from here on out, so I think we need to focus on using what we’ve learned and the confidence from the games we’ve been winning, but also figuring out how to take it to the next level, because we’re going to have to step it up,” said MacQueen.
Andover will travel to BB&N on Friday and will play Deerfield at home on Saturday.
