Zach Godsey ’25 looks past his opponent.
Andrew Chinn ’24 is playing his fourth year on the Andover Boys Water Polo team.
10/14 – Andover: 4, Brunswick: 21
10/14 – Andover: 6, Loomis: 3
10/18 – Andover: 7 , Suffield: 12
After a tough loss against Brunswick, Andover Boys Water Polo (3-8) demonstrated grit in the second leg of the double header, winning against Loomis Chaffee (Loomis) on Saturday. On Wednesday, the team faced another setback, losing to Suffield Academy (Suffield).
Jeffrey Lim ’27 acknowledged Andover’s fatigue after a well-fought game against Brunswick and noted that while the team was exhausted by the start of the Loomis game, it demonstrated resilience and dominance over its opponents.
Lim said, “Both teams were really tired after playing Brunswick. So the first quarter, no one scored. Nobody… [A] strength was that we still had our team morale up. So we had better communication than the Loomis team [and] I think that’s what really won us the game. ”
Leading up to the games against Brunswick and Loomis, Ethan Zhu ’26 noted that the preparation process for the team included mocking possible plays and scenarios that could arise within the game.
“In practice, we just practice a lot of in-game scenarios. In-game specific scenarios, and some plays that other teams would do. We basically do those in our scrimmages just so we could reenact what it would look like in real game situations.” said Zhu.
Regardless of the hard work leading up to the games, Zhu noted that the team struggled to follow through with its preparation against Brunswick. However, the team applied the work it put in during practice better against Loomis.
“Against Brunswick we were a little bit sloppy, but I think that was just because you’re coming off a two-hour bus ride, and a lot of us were pretty tired. But we definitely stuck to the game plan a lot better against Loomis.”
According to Zhu, Andover learned from its mistakes after the game against Brunswick, and later was able to capitalize on Loomis’s weaknesses.
“Because Brunswick’s defense is really good, we had already encountered a really hard defense, so our game plan was to do the same against Loomis and we knew that they wouldn’t play as hard, so we’d get our plays and get what we needed to do a lot easier,” said Zhu.
According to Zach Godsey ’25, the team had made great strides in terms of offensive movement and taking its time. Despite this, there are still improvements to be made before the season comes to an end.
Godsey said, We [had] a little bit more patience this game, especially with our offense, and I think our movement was pretty good on offense. I would say for things we need to do better, [we need to work on] center defender work and a lot of defense towards the center, and then passing under pressure. Yeah, I would say passing under pressure is a big one.”
Godsey reflected on the team’s loss against St. John’s Prep a couple of weeks ago. Andover will have the chance to compete once again against them on Friday, and Godsey looks forward to the challenge.
“We have a Friday game against St. John’s that we lost. We lost [to] them by one like a couple weeks ago. It should be a fun game. I really, I would like to win that one, so I’m looking forward to it,” said Godsey.
Boys Water Polo will play St. John’s Prep at home on Friday.
