After a long bus ride that would have hindered many athletes’ performances, veteran wrestler Scott Sanderson ’09 performed quite to the contrary, turning in a dominating performance over his Loomis Chaffee opponent in a bout that was scored at 16-1 to lead his team to a victory over Loomis. With tough Class A opponents in several of their past few bouts, Andover is impressively maintaining focus and performance, which shows in its current record. After taking its first loss of the year against NMH, Andover has gone on a tear of five straight victories. This week, Andover continued its forceful rebound from the NMH meet, beating Loomis Chaffee, but then dropped a tough loss to rival Belmont Hill. Looking to push the record to 10-2, Sanderson highlighted the Loomis meet with a dominating 16-1 technical fall. Along with Sanderson’s win, Andover took nine out of 13 bouts and walked away with a 41-30 victory. Andover picked up pins from Ben Elder ’09, Sam Dodge ’09 and Alex Gottfried ’09. Duncan Crystal ’10, Ryan Gaiss ’11 and Captain Shaun Stuer ’09 added wins by major decision, and Andover’s talented freshmen class went undefeated in the matchup against Loomis. Andover headed to face their next opponent in the meet, Belmont Hill. Andover did not fare as well against the highly lauded Belmont Hill wrestlers. Belmont Hill is nearly perfect on the year, with a record of 14-1, with their only loss coming against Northfield Mount Hermon. Stuer led the way with a pin against a tough foe, and Sanderson and Dodge added pins of their own to aid the Andover cause. The Belmont Hill team pulled off several victories in a row, despite losing one team point for unsportsmanlike conduct, and wound up with a 40-25 win. Andover dropped its second of two matchups, going 1-1 on the day. Despite a valiant effort by all the wrestlers on the Andover team, perennial New England powerhouse Belmont Hill was too much for Andover to handle. Crystal said afterwards, “We put in great work ethic this week, and even though we lost, we gave it a good run.” With their meet against Class A opponent Worcester Academy this Wednesday called off due to weather, there has been a week-long pause of action for the wrestling team. This Saturday at 2:30, Andover will play host to nearby Governor’s Academy, which holds a 6-8 record. One of GA’s losses came from a match against Hyde, a team which Andover controlled easily in their previous meeting. Andover will continue to practice rigorously throughout the week, and they plan to keep the winning trend going into Northern New Englands on February 7.
