Andover is looking to continue its success on the field following the team’s 18-0-1 record last season.
Kiera Harder ’23 serves as co-captain alongside Shea Freda ’24.
Working with a team of twelve new players, Andover Girls Varsity Field Hockey exhibited strong ball handling and offensive production in its most recent scrimmage against St. Mark’s. The team’s 7–1 victory follows its undefeated New England Preparatory Athletic Council (Nepsac) championship run last season.
According to Zori Warren ’23, the team’s chemistry is strong despite there being many new faces. She noted that the team bonding events, planned by the captains and coaches, have been instrumental in allowing the players to get to know one another as well.
“Our team this year has great team chemistry, and besides the fact that everyone on the team is just a genuinely nice person, I give a lot of credit to our captains and coaches for facilitating such a welcoming team environment. They have organized team dinners, brunches, and buddy pairs within the team that have brought us all closer together on and off the field,” wrote Warren in an email to The Phillipian.
Annabel Curry ’25 reflected on the scrimmage’s highpoints, which most notably included an efficient offense that was productive throughout the entire game.
“The scrimmages are really useful to see how we play as a team. We need to work [under] pressure, and I think it kind of shows that, okay, we can go out here and we can score a lot…. We have a tendency, I think, at least at this point, just taking it one game at a time… just continuing working on these scrimmages is nice, because we want to see what we need to work on. And those get put into the practice plan. That’s where everything’s a little bit different, but similar to last year, just focusing, working hard and keep getting better,” said Curry.
Co-Captain Keira Harder ’23 gave her perspective on future adjustments, noting the importance of building the team’s confidence in game-type situations.
Harder said, “I think a couple of things we could work on would probably be like spreading the field a little bit more. And trying to come up with more passing combinations. But even towards the end of today’s scrimmage, I was seeing given goes, I was seeing kids trying new things. Like some of our newer kids, we have a couple of kids who are newer to the sport who have only been playing for a little bit and they were trying new skills in the scrimmage, which was awesome to see. And I love that our team is taking risks, especially in a scrimmage, which is as it should be. And I love that we got everybody in today, which was fabulous as well.”
Harder shared her enthusiasm in regards to this season. She believes that if Andover continues to play as a cohesive unit with full effort from everybody, the ceiling will be extremely high.
“It’s awesome that everybody’s so bought in and really giving 100 percent to the team. So, again, I’m so excited for this season. And I can’t wait to see where we go. Because I know we had an unbelievable boost season last year… [and] I am beyond excited for this team to see how far we go,” said Harder.
Andover will travel to Thayer for its season opener on Saturday.
