Boys Tennis competed at the Class A New England Preparatory School Athletic Council (NEPSAC) Tournament, overcoming Milton Academy (Milton) and Phillips Exeter Academy (Exeter) in concise victories. The team ultimately progressed to the competition’s finals, though its repeat championship bid fell through in a narrow loss 3-4 to Brunswick. Despite not achieving its end goal, the entire team exhibited strong performances and showed resilience in the face of hardship. It closed its season on Wednesday, triumphing over and facing Exeter.
In the NEPSAC Tournament, Andover played Exeter in the semifinals on Saturday. The team carried its momentum from a six-game regular season win streak and applied it to move onto the finals. George Richardson ’27 touched on the rival schools’ matchup, in which Andover beat Exeter 4-1.
“Against Exeter, we swept in doubles, and we all played really good tennis. With that, we went into the singles already being up a point, which is really important in tennis because you already have the momentum going for you, and you only have to win three matches. We ended up winning 4–1 against Exeter, and Kevin [Niu ’25] was able to clinch that fourth match for us, which was really significant,” said Richardson.
Boys Tennis faced Brunswick, the tournament’s first seed, in the finals. Andover put on a hard-fought, back-and-forth game in a fight to be crowned consecutive Class A NEPSAC Tournament winners. Jeff Shen ’26 described a key match where Jacob Pletka ’27 and Chase Burke ’25, in a doubles match, fought with competitive spirit.
“A win that I want to draw attention to was our one doubles match against Brunswick in the finals, with Jacob Pletka and Chase Burke taking on two really tough opponents. It was kind of a tug-of-war, that whole match was back and forth, with 2–1, 3–2, 4–3, all the way until 7–6 when our team made the tactical decision to play more up at the net and volley more. That strategy worked spectacularly, so they were able to get that win that was so crucial to the overall team scores,” said Shen.
Adding onto the previous statement, Shen talks about the impressive feat and the importance of Burke and Pletka’s doubles victory. Andover, albeit winning the doubles round, were defeated in the NEPSAC Championship.
Shen said, “That win was just so important because it was such a tight match. If I’m being completely honest, that doubles team Chase and Jacob faced was probably one of the strongest in the entire NEPSAC league. The fact that they were able to pull out that win under all those circumstances, with everybody watching, it was just an amazing feeling for the team.”
Shen continued, “Going into the singles matches, our spirits were higher than ever. I really do want to highlight that match because it was one of the greatest doubles matches we played all season, not just because of the occasion, but because of how they played, the composure they kept, and how they really finished out that match. A 9–7 victory that was really cutting edge.”
Concluding its season, Boys Tennis traveled to Exeter, dominating its rival in a resounding victory. With a focus on the Seniors’ matches, Richardson described the atmosphere.
“The Exeter matches today went pretty well. We all played really well. Three out of our four seniors were able to get wins in their singles — Chase, Kevin, and Avery [Zheng ’25]. And like I said before, Avery played number two, and he just completely played amazing. I played two [position] doubles, Ben [Shin ’26] and I had a really close match. We were up and very close to winning, but we lost 4–7 in the tiebreak. But we won the doubles point regardless, which was really good to see. We’ve usually always beat Exeter in these past three or four years, but it was another really nice win to end our season,” said Richardson.
Co-Captain Niu reflected on the team’s impressive season, which concluded in a 9-2 regular season record. He shared how the team’s unique chemistry made the season memorable.
“We are very lucky. We had such a core team last year where we really had a strong season and we won, and that was a great memory for all of us. Moving into this season, we knew we had a good dynamic from last season, which made it really easy. I made an effort to get to know each other, especially the new people. I tried to get to know Jacob and Jeff. It all just kind of meshed together and it made this season much more fun. That’s why, even with the disappointing results, we were honestly somewhat satisfied with how we played, because we knew that we were really there as one team,” said Niu.
