Saturday 2/10 – Andover: 3, Tabor: 4
Andover: 4, Choate: 3
Sunday 2/11 – Andover: 3, Windsor: 4
Over the weekend, Andover Girls Squash (7-4) played at the New England Class A Tournament, competing in matches against Tabor Academy (Tabor), Choate, and Winsor. Defeating Choate and suffering two losses to Tabor and Winsor in very close matches, the team pushed through to show results against fierce competition.
Co-Captain Migyu Kim ʼ25 noted that the team had to face very competitive teams throughout the course of both Saturday and Sunday matches but were able to perform well under the pressure.
“Being set to play against strong teams is obviously very intimidating, but I really appreciate how everyone went in with a really fighting mentality and just wanted to give it their all without really caring about winning or losing. It was definitely challenging to be faced against intimidating opponents, and I think we did a great job rallying together to show our best games,” said Kim.
On Saturday, Liz Zhao ʼ24 praised the team’s number one seed and Co-Captain Christina Yen ʼ24 for her hard fought battle against Tabor’s number one seed. Even though Yen did not end up winning the match, Zhao highlighted her consistent effort and executed skill during the games.
In an email to The Phillipian, Zhao wrote, “Christina’s opponent is an extremely tough player, one of the top players in the country, and has only lost once this entire season, if I recall correctly… This was the last match of our team’s match against Tabor, so all of the girls gathered around to watch the incredible spectacle that these two put on… Her opponent has amazing attacks to the front that require ridiculous amounts of control and finesse, but somehow Christina was able to get so many of those insanely accurate shots, which made me gasp every time. The two of them fought a long and bitter match that went down to the wire.”
According to Zhao, the squad had a few focuses that they targeted leading up to the weekend to help them perform better. However, they also faced a competition-filled week in which they had to focus on skills and compete often.
Zhao wrote, “Leading up to the tournament, we did a lot of drilling with each other on specific shots and movements around the court. Many of these drills, which involve two or three players hitting certain shots to each other, are targeted at a couple specific shots, and we have a range of drills that cover all the shots we’ll eventually need in a match. The emphasis was definitely more on shot practice and repetition more than anything else, though in the week leading up to New Englands we actually only had one practice, since Monday was a day off, Tuesday and Wednesday we had matches, and we left for New Englands right after school on Friday.”
On Sunday, the team faced physical and mental challenges under the stress of the weekend and fatigue from frequent matches. Evelyn Kung ʼ26 described the Co-Captains’ work on Sunday to get the team excited and ready to improve against a very tough Winsor team who they lost to previously in the season.
“[Winsor] was also a really early morning match so everyone was pretty tired but our Captains tried to get us really warmed up and hyped before the match, they made us run court sprints and everything so we were all pretty excited about it because we wanted to have a shot. We ended up losing, but it was a lot closer than it originally was. I think originally we got swept or lost 6-1 but this time it was 4-3, and the deciding match was really really close,” said Kung.
As the season begins ramping up to its final few weeks, Kim spoke to the team’s focus on perfecting skills and working on personal improvements as they look towards Nationals.
“We’re going to be focusing on our fitness and sharpening up attacking shots and refining everything. It’s hard to say what as a team that we’re focused on, since we all have very individual games but making sure that we hone in on our individual weaknesses and improving them before Nationals at the end of the season,” said Kim.
Girls Squash will play at home against Deerfield on Saturday.
