4/6 Andover: 17 Greenwich: 24
4/6 Andover: 7 Deerfield: 12
Waterpolo faced its second two losses of the season last Saturday in a doubleheader against Greenwich Academy and Deerfield.
With the majority of Girls Water Polo being new to the team, the focus going into the games was getting everyone adjusted. Alice Zha ’25 shared that, although it is impossible to predict how a game is going to play out, preparing for different plays is critical.
“Because we’re mostly all new on the team, just going over everything in practice you just get familiarized with everything in the play. It’s not 100 percent the same (every time) but at least you’re familiar with what’s gonna happen,” said Zha.
Adz Morales ’25 commended Molly MacKinnon ’24 and Addison Deng ’26 on their impressive play. According to Morales, MacKinnon was strong on both offense and defense, and Deng had firsts in the hole.
“The individuals that stood out during the Greenwich and Deerfield game were Molly MacKinnon [who] had 12 goals one game, she was an offensive weapon, strong on defense, and went crazy. And Addison, who is a Lower, [and she] just began playing in hole and crushed it, she even got her first goal from hole, and she went crazy,” said Morales.
Zha noted how much of a difference maintaining a positive outlook makes during a hard game. She shared that the large score margin led the team to rely on its own spirit for motivation.
Zha said, “It doesn’t sound important, but really keeping high spirits was really important. Especially how we were losing so much in the beginning. It was really important for us to just keep pushing and we never gave up even though we were so behind. That was pretty important for the team to just keep it up. Every score was just ‘yes!’”
With a large portion of its players out due to injury this week, the team did their best given the circumstances. Ariana Zhao ’25 noted that a silver lining was that many of the new players were able to get valuable in-game experience.
Zhao said, “We’ve worked the most of last week around nine players at practices. For the games on Saturday, we were missing three out of our seven starters, which is a lot. Some of our key players who have been on the team or played for years were out because of injuries, so we had to work past that. A lot of new people got experience playing in the game and just learning more. I’m really proud of how we did. I think we did very well despite all of the challenges. And I think we overcame them by focusing on what we can do, focusing on what we had worked on, and supporting each other because I think we played super well.”
Looking forward, Zhao shared the team’s plans to work on communication. While it is already improving, Zhao noted that communication will help the team work better in the water.
“Something that the team will work on in the upcoming week is strengthening our communication. Although it’s gotten a lot better, I think something our team can work on is better communicating with each other during the game. Yelling if you’re open, if you’re driving, all that kind of stuff, so as to help your teammates… know where you are and work together a little bit better. Communication is something that we’ll work on a lot,” said Zhao.
Waterpolo will play Choate and Sacred Heart on Saturday.
