Andover has outscored its opponents 33-7 so far this season.
Andover Girls Hockey had an outstanding week, winning all three of its games. On Saturday, the team shut out Choate in a 3-0 win, leading Andover into another 5-3 win against Brooks School on Monday. After a break from games, the team came back this Wednesday with an incredible 8-1 win against Kimball Union Academy, thus remaining undefeated.
According to Coach Martha Fenton ’83, the team struggled in some aspects after being away for two and a half weeks. After the team came together at the Taft tournament, it was known the level at which the team could play, but meshing together again was a challenge. Nonetheless, there were no penalties against Girls Hockey.
Fenton said, “It was a good game, but it definitely wasn’t our best game. It was apparent that we had been away for a couple of weeks and it was a long bus ride and a little bit of a wait, so I think we were a little bit more disjointed than we had looked. We had that time together down at Taft and we were really starting to click. We had switched lines up and it always takes a little bit of time to adjust to that and we missed Emily Mara [’25], but I think the bottom line is we did what we needed to to get the win. We played a clean game and we didn’t get any penalties but we will need to play better hockey in the future.”
Wendi Ying ’25 mentioned the short amount of time the team had to prepare before the game against Choate. With only two practices before the game, the team needed to spend time together. Furthermore, the team spent time doing workouts and stretches to get back in the swing of things.
“We came back on Wednesday, so we only really had three days to prepare and we really just did our normal practices and then we did a lot of team workouts and stretches after practice, which we don’t normally do, but because the games on Saturday, we didn’t really wanna go super hard and practice because you want to have fresh legs the day after. The big thing was not having too much work for Saturday and Martha always emphasizes sleep so that was a focus,” Ying said.
In an email to The Phillipian, Shea Freda ’23 noted that the offense created many opportunities in front of the net, resulting in its five goals against Brooks. After a penalty against its opponents, Girls Hockey took advantage of its power play by pushing the puck into the offensive zone. Despite these strengths, the game would have been even more of a success if the team had a more vigorous first period, according to Freda.
“I think our strengths against Brooks were our defense rushing the puck on offense and creating opportunity in the offensive zone. We were able to transition really quickly and create shots especially in the second and third period. We also had a really strong power play which was able to produce lots of opportunities in front of the net. Our weakness was that we probably could have come out stronger in the first period,” wrote Freda.
Similarly to Monday against Brooks, Girls Hockey made many shots on goal, two of which led to goals from the team’s defenders. Choate was unable to match Andover’s efforts, since Andover’s defense shut down many of Choate’s opportunities, according to Ying.
Ying stated, “Well, two of our defense scored two goals, so we had a really good defense. I don’t know how many shots the other team’s goalie got compared to us, but I thought our defense was really strong. We have two of our captains on [defense] so that’s very helpful.”
Freda highlighted the importance of the team playing harder than it ever has because of what the team has to lose. Keeping effort at an all-time high is essential to the continued success of Girls Hockey.
“We’re definitely feeling great coming off of this win but I think we need to focus on keeping our intensity and not underestimating our opponents. We have a perfect record but if anything now we have to play with something to prove and something to lose, so we just have to continue to work hard and keep up our energy,” wrote Freda.
Andover will face St. Paul’s away this Saturday.
