Oliver Stabach ’26 looks to pass the ball in huge 16-4 victory against St. Johns Prep.
After a dominant 16-4 win versus St. John’s Prep, Boys Water Polo (9-6) fell in competitive matches against Deerfield Academy and Phillips Exeter Academy (Exeter). Over Family Weekend, Andover beat St. John’s Prep by 12 points — its largest margin of victory this season. However, last Saturday, Andover lost to Deerfield in a tight match. For their final game of the regular season, Water Polo traveled to Exeter, but fell in a gritty game.
The atmosphere for St. John’s Prep’s home game was electric, reflected Andrew Cai ’27. Not only was it Family Weekend, but it also fell on Senior night. One special Senior night tradition is that all Seniors, regardless of level, get the chance to play on Varsity. As an example, Cai pointed to Woori Lee ’26, who stepped up to the challenge.
“Woori Lee, who joined water polo recently, usually plays on the JV squad, but because of Senior night, he was able to play on the varsity side for this game. He played really well, working really cohesively with the rest of the team and playing some very smart defense on the St. John’s center player. I remember Woori went from his defender to help out in the center and was actually able to stop a potential goal. He realized that the opposing player was in a good scoring position and moved to help. That was a really smart, heads-up play,” said Cai.
“The defensive performance was also really good. I didn’t face many shots. I honestly don’t remember any shots taken on me. I really didn’t have to make many saves. I got to sit there in the goal, purely because the defense was just so good and their shots weren’t even getting to me,” said Appen.
“We had the ball down low in the pool, and Ethan walked into space because the ball was attracting attention, so his defender dropped off him. He faked the shot one or two times and then shot it hard into the top-left corner. He was just able to find space and then absolutely ripped a banger of a shot,” said Appen.
“[Deerfield] got a pretty lucky play. We messed up on defense. One thing that we struggled with was our players getting back to help on the opposing center, specifically because two of our center players were out for this game. They were our main center defenders, and Deerfield was able to take advantage of that and put a lot of pressure on that position,” said Cai.
“The game, in some ways, was closer than what the scoreboard suggested. We had a lot of good shots on goal that unfortunately didn’t fall the right way. We got unlucky there. We had some decent opportunities that we just couldn’t finish on offense. Overall, I’d say it was a hard-fought game, but they pulled away from us early, and we were just trying to play catch-up in the second half,” said Xu.
This Saturday, Boys Water Polo will play in the playoffs as the fifth seed. After a six-year playoff drought, Andover will look to return to the Interschols Tournament.
Editor’s Note: Nathan Egbuna is a Video Editor for The Phillipian.
