Saturday 10/14 – Andover: 4, St. Paul’s: 1
Wednesday 10/18 – Andover: 2, Governor’s: 2
Following its win at St. Paul’s on Saturday, Andover Girls Soccer (6-4-1) tied with Governor’s in a close game on Wednesday, scoring a late equalizer in the second half.
Heading into the St. Paul’s game on Saturday, Head Coach Lisa Joel had athletes reflect on how they felt regarding the team’s strengths and weaknesses. Goalkeeper Jill Reichenbach PG’24 felt that this was a productive way for the team to acknowledge where it needs to improve.
“I think this was really helpful because the pattern that emerged from that conversation was that we are not bringing out [our] best game to the first half, we get complacent in the first half then really turn it up in the second half,” said Reichenbach.
Following its reflections, the team successfully executed the game plan in the first half of the game against St. Paul’s. Reichenbach shared that the team was focused on corner kicks, which ended up producing its first goal.
Reichenbach said, “Going into the St. Paul’s game we were really focused on bringing our best to the first half. The whole team brought it to the first half and it really showed. We have been working on different corner kicks and those really came together in the game. We had two really great goals from Keaghan [Murphy ’27] and Wylie [Roossien ’26] in the first half. One goal was off a corner kick that gave us a lot of momentum and we ended with a 4-1 win.”
On Wednesday against Governor’s, Kendall Toth ’24 highlighted Co-Captain Emily Mara ’25 and Roossien in their team effort to score. She shared that throughout the game although the team was not always able to execute, it created a lot of goal scoring opportunities.
Toth said, “The first goal was really amazing. Wylie created an amazing scoring opportunity for Emily Mara. Wylie played a great ball forward and Emily made a really strong run forward. Throughout the game we created a lot of chances in the final third which stood out. Unfortunately we weren’t able to capitalize on all of our opportunities, but that is definitely something we will be working on going forward.”
Andover was able to bring energy to the first half of the Governor’s game and put together a strong and organized second half, according to Toth. She noted improvements in both the team’s offense and defense as the game progressed.
Toth said, “One of our strengths was we were definitely more composed in the second half. We had really good talking and communication on the field which made our game a lot smoother. Our marking was a lot better than it has been, as well as our stepping, which helped our defense. Our defense was really good especially with helping out on the wings. We used the width of the field a lot and played a lot of good balls up the wing.”
According to Lola Aguirre ’26, one of the team’s greatest strengths this season has been its ability to bring passion to games. Aguirre noted how in the game against Governor’s, much of the energy came from the opportunities the team had to score goals.
Aguirre said, “Soccer games always have a great atmosphere in the sense that they are always high intensity and very back and forth, which is really exciting. Today it was really exciting because we had a lot of opportunities to score, which is something we have been working on this season. Though we didn’t follow through on all of these opportunities, we still had really great energy throughout the game, and it was really fun.”
After each game, the team always awards a member with being the “Most Valuable Player.” Aguirre highlighted Toth as standing out with her ability to move the ball around in the midfield and take the ball up the field via the wing.
Aguirre said, “Kendall was awarded MVP of the game at Governor’s. She had a great game today, she played one of her best games of the season. She was really strong on the midfield and on the wing. She created a lot of really amazing scoring opportunities in the midfield and played some great balls up the wing.”
Girls Soccer will play Northfield Mount Hermon at home on Saturday.
