Captain Bobby Corkery ’23 moves through the neutral zone.
After two weekend losses to Albany Academy, 2-4, and Tabor Academy, 3-8, Andover Boys Hockey defeated Thayer Academy, 1-0, on Wednesday, with the only goal scored by Nolan Roche ’23. This puts the team’s record at 1-2.
While the games over the weekend did not give Boys Hockey the start to the season they were hoping for, Captain Bobby Corkery ’23 discussed the importance of focusing on the future rather than dwelling on the past.
“This past weekend, we didn’t get off on the right foot, [the games] did not go the way we wanted them to, but we talked it over as a team, went over some film, and that’s in the past now,” said Corkery.
Andover returned to the ice on Wednesday, prepared to defeat Thayer. According to Roche, the team’s work during practice, particularly regarding puck handling and power plays, prepared the team well for Thayer.
“We worked on our special teams…we are a man up and a man down on the power play and penalty kill, [and] that, I think, hurt us over the weekend. But I think our penalty kill was excellent tonight. We didn’t allow a single goal on any short-handed plays. Our power play was a lot better. We didn’t score on the power play tonight, but I thought we generated a lot more chances. And we were more responsible with the puck,” Roche said.
Roche said that the game against Thayer was high energy and that fans contributed to the excitement as well. Roche noted that the low score on both ends did not disrupt the energy of the game.
Roche said, “It was a great game tonight. Really low scoring, just 1-0, but our goalie, Benjamin Skowronek [’24], he stood on his head, he played amazing, so [we’re] definitely very thankful for him. Overall, a very high energetic night, the fans were a big boost too. I accidentally spilled my coffee before the game, so I worried I’d be a little low on energy, but the fans brought me up. Laying great, defensive hockey, and really shutting the other team down.”
Despite the strong performance on Wednesday, Joseph Doyle ’26 pointed out that the team needs to work on keeping a level head, especially during dramatic moments on the ice. While positive energy is crucial, according to Doyle, the team should not let their enthusiasm obstruct gameplay.
“It’s still pretty early in the season, but I think that one thing that hurt us a lot this weekend was … getting too high and … getting too low. So when we score a goal, we can’t just celebrate for a minute and forget about the game that’s going on … when we let up a goal, we can’t just hang our heads. We always have to have positive energy on the bench, and not let the highs get too high, and the lows get too low,” said Doyle.
Looking ahead, Roche believes the team will focus on furthering its offensive tactics to score more goals. Roche noted that despite the team’s ability to create many opportunities to score, it has had trouble following through with goals.
“For our next game, I think that we should work on scoring and offensive production, because we definitely had a lot of chances tonight, but not a lot of goals to show for it, so we are just going to continue working on our power play, continue working on offensive zone, moving the puck around, [and] generating good scoring chances,” Roche said.
Andover plays at home on Friday against Brewster Academy.
