Jake Saalfrank ’25 reaches for the ball against an opponent from Salisbury School.
Andover Football (0-2) hosted its home opener on Saturday against Salisbury School (Salisbury). Although backed up by a whiteout home crowd, the team watched Salisbury pull ahead towards the end of the first half.
Matthew Saleh ’26 reflected upon Saturday’s loss and explained how the team will bounce back for next week. He spoke on the energy of the team just before the game and noted that the team needs to be playing hard until the end of the play.
“The game didn’t turn out in our favor… Our team wasn’t focused all throughout… and it’s something that we have to focus on for our next game. We just have to be more focused. We had a great week of practice, but when it came to the warm-ups before the game, we just weren’t focused. We were off. So in terms of our games, we just have to keep focusing all the way to the end of the whistle in the future,” said Saleh.
Although the team ultimately found itself behind a large lead made by Salisbury, wide receiver Oliver Velez ’26 did his best to keep Andover in the game. Bennett Rodgers ’26 highlighted his big plays that motivated his fellow teammates.
Rodgers said, “One person who played particularly well was Ollie Velez. He had two touchdowns and then he also created a lot of energy through his plays on the offense. He gave the offense some juice and me and my teammates fed off his effort and determination throughout the game.”
Nathanial Cook ’25 additionally highlighted Velez and one of his touchdowns.
“One memorable moment from the game that helped bring us together as a team was Ollie’s performance in the game. Ollie is a super hard worker and it really inspired the team when he started getting multiple targets throughout the game. On one play later in the third or fourth quarter, our quarterback heaved the ball up in the air and Ollie came down with it. Ollie took the ankles of two defenders and beat out another Salisbury [Defensive Back] to get us a touchdown. He definitely showed all of us his high effort and gave us something to get hype for even if the game wasn’t going our way,” said Cook.
In an effort to move past the loss, Cook mentioned what the team needs to do to put a win on the teams’ record. He spoke about the importance of practice and how the team will fix in-game errors to show out against the Kent School (Kent) on Saturday.
Cook said, “Coming off a tough loss we immediately looked at what we did wrong and what steps we can take in practice this week to fix it. A big part of our loss was a lack of effort every play. We are focused on playing as a team every play with high intensity. Practice is the biggest part of our game plan, so we are going to make sure we attack every day as best we can.”
Andover will travel to Kent on Saturday.
