The Andover Boy’s Lacrosse team avenged its Saturday loss to Loomis Chaffee by overwhelming Worcester Academy in every way on Wednesday. After losing 15-2 on Saturday, the Big Blue boys were out for blood. The team knew ahead of time that Loomis would be an outstanding competitor and would play a fierce game of lacrosse; unfortunately, Andover suffered from a severe case of “bus legs” and was unable to rise to the occaision. The first quarter started off close, with the score tied at 1-1, but in the last minute Loomis was able to find the net twice as a result of Andover’s defensive breakdowns. From that point on, the game just snowballed. Despite the high score in Loomis’s favor, Andover kept a positive attitude and tried to stay in the game as much as possible. Coach Carr said, “Captain Nate Kellogg and senior leader Dave Wilkinson deserve credit for keeping the Andover players focused through the end of the game. Despite the lopsided outcome, the Andover boys never quit. Matt Yeager had another great game as a long-stick midfielder showing a tireless work ethic.” With its loss freshly ingrained in its memory and the goal of refocusing and regrouping, the team stepped onto the field Wednesday against Worcester Academy ready to win. And they played that way, coming away with a 17-3 victory. The zone defense run by Worcester was a bad matchup for the Andover offense. Andover, used to playing against a man-to-man defense, could easily run around in the Worcester offensive zone and take advantage of scoring opportunities. There was a lack of action in Andover’s defensive end, as the majority of Worcester’s clears ended up on the ground and intercepted by an Andover player. Coach Carr used this as a chance to give the normally defensive and midfield players a chance to try offense. As a result, a lot of players had their first varisty goals, including Justin Lee ’06, who had two, Andrew Heilmann ’05, and Zack Johnson ’08. Jake Edwards ’06 even had a goal with a longpole. Pete McCarthy ’07 said, “Though it wasn’t our best game in terms of level of play, the win against Worcester was a great confidence boost and an opportunity to reorganize ourselves before our game against Kimball Union Academy next Saturday.” Co-Captain Kellogg agreed, saying, “Although we didnt face a difficult opponent, it was a good game for us to fine tune the smaller parts of our offense as well as give us a confidence booster.”
