My athletic career at Andover has been filled with both disappointments and successes. After my Lower year, my first year, in which I was a Tri-Varsity athlete in Girls Field Hockey, Girls Ice Hockey, and Girls Lacrosse, disaster struck. During the fall of my Upper Year, I tore my ACL in Field Hockey and was unable to compete in Ice Hockey and Lacrosse. Returning to the field my Senior year, I competed in Field Hockey but was limited playing time in Ice Hockey due to an MCL injury.
Having to recover from multiple injuries was difficult and frustrating, to say the least. When I look back on my time with Andover Athletics, however, the setbacks I endured are only small pixels in the overall image of my Andover athletic experience. I am grateful to have had played with “Andover” written across my jersey for the past three years.
My athletic career at Andover is defined by my experiences: the silly games my teammates and I played on long bus rides and at tournaments, team dinners with Kate Dolan and Martha Fenton’s notorious cheesy-pasta, and the time with my teammates and coaches on the field or on the ice working hard, getting better, and having fun, and the times when my teammates elected me captain of both Field Hockey and Ice Hockey.
I will never forget beating Exeter 4-0 in my last Andover/Exeter Ice Hockey game. I will never forget the sound of the buzzer, the sight of the scoreboard, or the silly string we projected all over our locker room after we won.
I still feel the energy and excitement of our field hockey game against Middlesex in the pouring rain my Lower Year. I think. I think of all the hours my coaches invested in the team and all the time they spent making me a better player and person.
I think of the best friends I have made through my sports at Andover; friends I have made through a mutual love for the sports and for the commitment to becoming the best athletes we could be.
Andover athletics has done more for me then help me become a better athlete – my coaches and teammates have helped me become a better person. These past three years I have learned what “giving everything I have” really means, what it means to be a great teammate, how to pick both myself and others up after we fall again and again, and what it means to truly love a game with all my heart.
Andover athletics has helped define the person I am today and I will carry the memories and the lessons of my experiences with me forever.
_Hannah Sorkin is a three-year Senior from Melville, NY. She co-captained Girls Varsity Field Hockey and Girls Varsity Ice Hockey and played Girls Varsity Lacrosse._
