Attackman Josh Heaney ’24 escapes a defender.
Propelled by its off-ball movement, Andover Boys Lacrosse excelled on both ends of the field in its 12-7 win over Dexter Southfield on Wednesday. The win followed a 6-9 defeat to Loomis on Saturday, bringing the team’s record to 8-6.
According to Head Coach James Beaudoin, the team’s defense improved substantially throughout the game against Loomis. He highlighted Co-Captain Preston Whitehurst ’22 for his excellent leadership on defense during the game.
“I think they made some really great defensive adjustments. Loomis scored five in the first quarter, and then zero in the second, and then two in the third two in the fourth. So I was really proud of the fact that they saw how they were getting beat and made really sound adjustments, and that came through from [Co-Captain] Preston Whitehurst on down the line to the other guys. So it was definitely really great to see that they recognized what was happening and made a really solid adjustment,” said Coach Beaudoin.
Charlie Ferguson ’23 emphasized the change in the team’s defensive ability throughout its game against Dexter. He added that Andover was able to score many assisted goals because it played unselfishly.
“I’d say definitely on defense containing their best players on offense Preston Whitehurst say great job locking down their best attackmen. So I definitely would shout him out on offense. We had a lot of unselfish playing the game come to us, we didn’t force anything. And we got a lot of assisted goals,” said Ferguson.
According to Coach Beaudoin, the team focused on ground balls after the Loomis game. Given the importance of ground balls in lacrosse, he found it important for the team to work on them before facing Dexter.
“We’re working on improving our ground balls. That was kind of our focus over the last two practices, improving that statistic, which hasn’t been in our favor, mainly because of faceoffs. Because at the faceoff, if we lose those, you pretty much lose the ground ball, and we haven’t been doing extremely well at that part of the game. We worked on that a lot going into tomorrow. That adjustment and trying to make sure that people who are going to see the field are ready to play tomorrow as well,” said Coach Beaudoin.
Ferguson emphasized the importance of the type of defense used during the game. He believed the man-on-man defense that the team used against Dexter Southfield improved its performance at the back.
“I’d say definitely on defense, we worked on when to use certain defenses and the timing of that and I think we’re pretty good and we use a man-to-man defense, which contained Dexter pretty well. So I’d say that was good. And then on offense, we focused on just moving the ball around and getting a lot of off-ball movement in the practices leading up to this game, and that’s what we accomplished,” said Ferguson.
Andover hopes to follow up on its result against Dexter as it welcomes Pomfret on Saturday.
Editor’s Note: Charlie Ferguson is a Sports Editor for The Phillipian.
