Saturday 5/9: Andover: 9, Deerfield: 4
Wednesday 5/13: Andover: 12, Exeter: 17
Girls Water Polo (7–3) hosted two games at home over the past week, besting Deerfield by five points but falling to Phillips Exeter Academy (Exeter) 12–17.
On Saturday, Girls Water Polo faced Deerfield for the second time this season, having previously defeated the team 14–8. Djenabou Bah ’28 reflected on how the team used its familiarity with Deerfield to its advantage.
“We already knew our opponents and who was their biggest threat. So, we had different people go based on our levels. And it was a really straightforward game. We were up every quarter, so it was good,” said Bah.
Helen McNeely ’29 described how the team’s momentum during Senior Night carried the players throughout the game.
“We had pretty good energy because it was Senior Night, and we had played them before and done well. We started off pretty good, and then we kind of just carried that with us for the game,” said McNeely.
On Wednesday, the team faced Exeter, which it had previously defeated at the beginning of the season. Despite a strong offense, Andover struggled defensively due to injuries and the use of an emergency goalie. Camden Schopler ’27 explained the team’s challenges and areas of improvement.
“It didn’t go the best, honestly. But part of that may have been that we had our backup backup goalie, who isn’t a goalie. She had some great effort considering that she doesn’t play, so that was an issue for today. And then we kept getting counterattacked. And that’s something we’re going to need to work on before the tournament this Saturday, but there’s also a bunch of good things towards the second half, where we had drives going, and we were running an offense against them. We may not necessarily have done the best, but we definitely started improving towards the end of the game, which we can use for the tournament this Saturday,” said Schopler.
As the team looks ahead to the NEPSAC Championships, it has focused on experimenting with different techniques and drills in practice, which Bah elaborated on.
“We’ve just been trying to up our practices and try different defenses. One thing that our team hadn’t really been good at was six on five, when a person gets directed for 20 seconds. And we have been working on that a lot this past week. So that helps because we had a bunch of six on five plays [on Saturday]. And we could see how we improved because everyone got to their spots way faster,” said Bah.
Schopler described the team’s growth throughout the season and emphasized the importance of starting strong in its final tournament.
“We’ve been pretty good at improvement regarding certain aspects throughout the season. We may have started off having a very stagnant offense, and throughout the season, we started having more movement on offense and more people having confidence within themselves to shoot the ball to bring it in. And there’s just been so many improvements in people who have never played before. All we have to do is to come out strong in the first half, instead of coming out strong in the second half. And then improving counterattacks, and everybody being ready to get back on defense when we miss a shot, or get the ball stolen on offense,” said Schopler.
Girls Water Polo will host the annual NEPSAC Tournament this Saturday.
