“I have never seen a team play with as much heart as we did,” said defensemen Stephanie Clegg ’08 after Andover’s 4-2 loss this past weekend against Choate Rosemary Hall. Although Andover exhibited a strong effort, it was unable to overtake the unity and strength of the Choate team. Going into the game, the teams seemed evenly matched. Andover’s front line, composed of Co-Captain Julie Wadland ’06, Co-Captain Melissa Tetreau ’06, and Lindsey Moramarco ’06, is one of the best in the league, while Choate’s star player, Hilary Knight ’07, is one of the best wingers around. In hopes of preventing Knight from gaining possession of the puck, Coach Fenton decided to shadow the entire game. In the first period of the game, Andover dominated, maintaining the puck in the opponent’s zone for most of the time. Unfortunately, Andover was unable to break through and score. Forward Jamie Harisiades ’08 commented, “We had our chances but we didn’t capitalize on them.” Co-Captain Wadland and Co-Captain Tetreau, however, did an excellent job prohibiting Knight from receiving the puck. In the second period, Choate pulled away and scored a goal. Though the team was down, Andover remained calm and did not allow frustration to cloud its focus on the game. With a little less than ten minutes into the final period, the scoreboard read 3-0, and Andover’s hopes were dismal, but Co-Captain Wadland, with eight minutes and eight seconds left, whizzed the puck into the goal. Recharged, Andover dominated on the ice, and with 55.7 seconds remaining, Moramarco scored to raise the score 3-2. With less than a minute remaining in the game, Andover’s best strategy to tie up the game was to take goalie Ansley LaHue ’06 out of goal and replace her on the ice with another forward. Unfortunately, the plan failed and Choate managed to skate into Andover’s zone with a clear shot at the net to make the final score 4-2. The referee calls were particularly controversial this game. Harisiades executed what appeared to be a legal move of pinning an opponent against the boards, but was given a penalty for body checking. Another interesting aspect of the referee’s calling was that the normal five second rule, which states that a player has five seconds to compose themselves before the face-off, did not seem to apply in this game. In at least two instances, Andover’s forwards were unprepared because the referee blew the first whistle, normally indicating a five second set up period, and dropped the puck into play without waiting. Co-Captain Wadland was extremely impressed and proud of LaHue, whom she believed played her best game of the season thus far. She had a total of 29 saves. Wednesday’s game against New Hampton was cancelled due to a lack of players from the opposing team. Of New Hampton’s already small, eleven-player team, only seven would have been eligible to play. This shortage of athletes was due to both sickness and game suspension for extraneous reasons. Unfortunately, New Hampton is not as skilled a team as Andover, and Andover needed that win to contribute to its final record at the end of the season to qualify for the New England tournament. After losing to both Taft and Choate, two teams which it had the potential to beat, Andover resides in the 6th place. Nevertheless, Coach Fenton is attempting to schedule a home game against New Hampton later on in the season and secure a win. Harisiades commented, “Coach Fenton told us a loss should sting, it should give you ammunition for the next game.” The team plans to carry that advice into this weekend’s match-up against St. Paul’s and show just how talented of a team it really is.
