Co-Captain Marcel Montemayor Fontes ’23 travels across the pool, looking for a passing opportunity.
Defeating St. John’s Prep 11-2, Andover Boys Water Polo secured its fourth consecutive win on Friday. The team’s record now sits at 7-6.
Leading up to the game, the team’s practices were essential to its performance in the pool, according to Daniel Seong ’25. Seong believes working on game-like scenarios was one of the most beneficial parts of practice.
“I think we have been working a lot on game-related drills, and I think it was useful in establishing the team’s approach to the game,” said Seong.
Andover’s defense contributed to shutting St. John’s Prep’s attacks down, according to Seong. By the end of the first quarter, Andover had only let in one goal.
“Defensively our team definitely showed out. They only scored two goals, and our team was able to recognize and develop defensive strategies that we have trained for in practice,” said Seong.
Zach Godsey ’25 highlighted the determination of Sean Niu ’25 during Friday’s game. According to Godsey, Niu was one of the most hardworking in the game despite coming off the bench.
Godsey said, “Another player that was instrumental to our win on Friday was Sean Niu, who has been one of the most motivated and hard-working players. The St. John’s [Prep] game was a time where he was able to demonstrate his newly found skills and proved to people he really deserves his spot on varsity.”
Andrew Chinn ’24 highlighted Jason Kokones ’25, noting his ability to understand the team’s needs at all times.
“I think Jason played an incredible leadership role in the win on Friday. Jason has really developed as one of the young leaders for our program. Moving forward, it’s going to be very valuable to have people like Jason who can take control of a situation and recognize where the team needs to be at any given moment,” said Chinn.
According to Chinn, the team mainly focused on improving its communication in preparation for the game. Especially for the players who do not have as much experience on the team, Chinn felt it was important to work together on developing a better sense of community and comfortability with every player on the team.
Chinn said, “One of the things we definitely wanted to work on was our vision and communication skills. I think our game on Friday was an opportunity for some people on the varsity team, that don’t typically get to play, to have an opportunity to demonstrate those skills that were learned in practice. I think our team in general [has] learned a lot from previous games, especially those players that played in the St. John’s [Prep] game.”
Although its defense has improved, Godsey believes the team needs to establish better defensive habits along with refining its situational awareness moving forward.
“I think recognizing what stage of the game we are in and how to act accordingly is something that we really need to work on. Our team is also working on being more ball aware of different situations and surroundings, but also playing team defense instead of individual defense,” said Godsey.
Andover Boys Water Polo will host Deerfield on Saturday and Phillips Exeter Academy on Wednesday.
Editor’s Note: Andrew Chinn is an Associate Photo Editor for The Phillipian.
