A Deerfield forward streaked down the ice towards Andover Boys Hockey goalie Erik Wurman ’15 in a one-on-one situation. With the team’s momentum on the line, Wurman slid to his left and made a spectacular glove save to hold Andover’s lead at 4-1.
Despite some great moments, Andover has struggled to produce wins over the past two weeks. The team tied against Loomis 2-2 on Saturday and Deerfield 4-4 on Wednesday.
Against Loomis, Andover secured a 2-0 lead in the third period with goals from John Festa ’15 and Rob Devaney ’14.
The team, however, allowed two goals in the last seven minutes of the third period to end the game in a 2-2 tie.
One of those goals came with 25 seconds left in the third period as Loomis pulled its goalie in a risky gamble that paid off.
“Our coaches have been emphasizing playing all 54 minutes. Even when we were up 2-0 near the end of the third period, we learned that if we take a shift off, we give teams a chance to take a win away from us,” said Captain David Belluche ’14.
Not playing assertive, fast-paced hockey proved to be costly coming down the stretch for the team.
“We let them take the play to us rather than pushing the puck into their end. All we did was try to prevent them from scoring, and we stopped moving our feet,” said Assistant Captain Michael Lata ’14.
On Wednesday, against Deerfield, Andover fought for a 4-1 lead going into the last six minutes of the game.
Goals from Festa, Kyle Moss ’15, Pat Daly ’15 and Rob Devaney ’14 secured the lead for Andover. Deerfield, however, found a way to fight back, scoring a power-play goal to narrow the gap to 4-2.
Thirty seconds later, Deerfield managed to tack on another goal.
“For the first 48 minutes, we are outworking them, we are hitting them and we are getting shots on their goalie. Then when it comes to the last six minutes, we back off and play defensively but the other team just runs over us,” said Festa.
In the third period, two goals were called back, one from Andover and the other from Deerfield. However, Deerfield kept pushing, eventually tying the game and forcing overtime to finish 4-4.
“Momentum started going their way and instead of trying to fight back we let them step all over us,” said Devaney.
Andover knows that some areas, specifically clearing the puck out of the defensive zone, need improvement if the team is to make it deep into the playoffs.
“We need to chip pucks out of the defensive zone. At the end of the game, we need to keep them out of our zone. Playing simple hockey will help,” said Devaney.
Head Coach Dean Boylan said, “We have some key games coming up, and we certainly need to clean up the way we’re playing. We need to play the last six minutes the same way we were playing the first 48 [minutes].”
Andover will travel to face Belmont Hill on Friday before coming back home to play Dexter on Saturday.
Lata said, “To beat teams from now on, we can’t make those small, mental errors. With the quality of the teams we’re playing, if we take a shift off, they will make us pay.”
