Co-Captain Robbie Nyamwaya ’24 is one of four Co-Captains for Andover Boys Basketball’s 2023-2024 season.
1/6 – Andover: 73, Choate: 70 OT
1/8 – Andover: 56, Brooks: 54
1/10 – Andover: 92, Worcester Academy: 89 OT
To begin the new year, Andover Boys Basketball (6-2) took on Choate, Brooks, and Worcester Academy (Worcester). In these games, the team took all three wins, despite its games against Choate and Brooks coming down to the last possession.
In the team’s first game against Choate, it fought a battle from behind but began to close the gap and take the game into overtime. According to Cade Rutkoske ’26, the energy brought by the team’s home opener propelled them to play hard and take the win.
Rutkoske said, “It was the first home game of the season, so I think that everybody went into the game with a little bit of extra motivation to come out with a win. Especially playing at home, you see people in the crowd and get a feeling of playing for and representing your community and your school. We all really wanted to get the win so I think the energy was pretty high.”
Following Andover’s game against Choate, it faced off with Brooks at home, which ended in a narrow win. Isaiah Harris ’24 spoke on the team’s ability to use the home advantage to steal the game away from Brooks.
“It was our second home game and we went in definitely hoping not to lose. We faced Brooks… and they beat us last year. So, we wanted to get our get-back on them. Everyone wanted to do well and take advantage of the opportunity of being home to just win and compete. Going into the game, we wanted to focus on moving the ball and communicating on defense,” said Harris.
Despite a so-far undefeated 2024 season, the team has played close games that have come down to the wire. Rashad McCormick PG’24 spoke about how the team has been able to lift itself back into the game in the last few minutes.
McCormick said, “We prepare for that in practice: we do situations like down by five, two minutes left, and we have to try to come back and win the game, and we actually did that in the game against Choate, which went past regulation. So in our game, we felt confident in our ability to make the comeback and seal the game in overtime. We have some mental athletes on our team and everybody gets it together at the end, and fights for the win.”
After fighting an intense battle against Worcester in overtime, the team showed its stamina in taking home another win from the road. After the victory, Rutkoske mentioned some of the weaknesses that the team cleaned up in the game against Worcester.
“We played solid as a team but there are definitely things that we need to continue to think about [and] work on. We watched a film Monday night just to see some of the things that went well for us… We rebounded the ball really well. I think Rashad had around 14 rebounds in that game so that was something that we really wanted to continue working on and to continue to be adamant about,” said Rutkoske.
Andover saw everything from huge comebacks to important defensive plays. Among these, McCormick highlighted the playmaking and shooting of Diego Velez ’24.
McCormick said, “Diego played really hard, he tried his best, he hit big-time shots for us, and just played a great game. He had an impressive showing today against Worcester. He played amazing, he had a game-winner, he had about four or five threes, and was there to send the game to overtime, all while playing hard on defense. He’s one of those guys you need because he just brings the energy every time.”
Andover travels to Tabor Academy on Saturday.
