Avery Lin ’25 is Andover’s sixth seed player.
This Wednesday, Andover Boys Squash swept Belmont Hill in their season opener, winning all eight individual matches. The team’s record now stands at 1-0.
In an email to The Phillipian, Head Coach John Roberts highlighted three areas of discipline for players centering conditioning and technical drills.
“A combination of fitness/strength, more disciplined choice of shot and keeping our unforced errors to a minimum. All [three] go hand in hand so that’s been the focus of practices thus far. There wasn’t [anything] specific for this match. We’ve only had one week of practice so it’s been mostly about getting the lineup sorted and squeezing drills in where we can,” wrote Coach Roberts.
According to Bryce Farr ’23, Andover will focus on enhancing its skills for its upcoming matchup against Deerfield. For the 2021-2022 season, Deerfield held a 14-6 and ended as the fourth seed team in the New Englands.
Farr said, “I think we went into this match projected to heavily win, so I think the team, they went to their matches with the mindset that we wanted to practice what we’ve been working on in practices prior to this match, in order to better prepare for our match this weekend,”
Coach Roberts reiterated the importance of a strong start to the season to better prepare Andover for this season’s upcoming competitive matches.
“From start to finish, [the team] didn’t take their foot off the gas and didn’t give them any easy points or unforced errors. We have 3 tough matches before winter break against strong opponents. We wanted to be clinical here and try [to] build momentum for Saturday which is going to be a really hard match away to Deerfield,” Coach Roberts wrote.
Additionally, other forms of preparation include challenge matches to maximize Andover’s victories, according to Farr. These matches will be played to determine an established lineup.
“Deerfield has a really strong lineup. Their top three are really strong, so we’re trying to solidify our ladder at the bottom spots so four, five, six, and seven spots. I think we’re probably gonna have a few challenge matches before that to make sure that we have the correct lineup and the best chance of winning possible,” said Farr.
Corey Shen ’26 explained lack of composure at times during the Belmont Hill match. Shen emphasized the importance of staying poised to avoid incidental mistakes that could cost the team points.
“Right now…some of us will get too frustrated after losing consecutive points, or if we start losing consecutive wins. We don’t know how to start [to] adapt, so our opponent kind of beat us with that,” said Shen.
Boys Squash will play Deerfield this Saturday.
