The ball flew through the air across the pool from the hand of goalkeeper and Captain Andrew Wilson ’12 in a rare play in which Andover’s goalie netted his first goal of the season.
This goal solidified Andover’s 14-7 victory over St. John’s on Saturday, a win that helped the team bounce back from a close 7-10 loss to Suffield on Wednesday, October 19.
In the game against St. John’s, Didi Peng ’12 earned a hat trick, with T.J. Lenzo ’12 assisting two of the goals. Peng said, “We took advantage of their positioning to get some fast breaks and scored on a lot of counter attacks.”
All the team members played at some point during the game. With new combinations of players in the pool, the team used different techniques to highlight each player’s strengths. As Peter Fanikos ’14 said, “We all tried new things, and it was by far our most creative game.”
Faster swimmers guarded perimeter shooters to get a jump on fast breaks. This led to goals from a variety of players, including Eric Benca ’12, Nick Camarda ’12 and Chris Nanda ’12. Travis Bouscaren ’14 added several goals on backhand rockets from set. Andover led the whole game.
Andover played a tight first quarter against Suffield, with goals from Calvin Aubrey ’12 and Derrick Choi ’12 as well as a spectacular five meter penalty save from Wilson. The defense contained the perimeter well and collapsed on the Suffield ball carrier when he found the slot.
Just before the first half ended, Wilson threw the ball up to Benca who slipped it to a wide open Bouscaren in the center. Bouscaren then promptly buried a top left shot.
However, Suffield dominated the second quarter of the game. Suffield’s players scored five goals, three of which came in a two-minute span, giving the team substantial momentum to begin the second half with a 5-3 lead.
In the second half, Andover added four goals. Nanda sniped a top right corner shot and Bouscaren scored his second goal after a head-fake, stutter and spot-on pass from Choi.
At the beginning of the fourth quarter, Wilson saved a shot, then passed the ball up to Benca on the counter, who broke away and lobbed a shot that landed just inside the left post.
With three and a half minutes left in the game, a scrum in front of the Suffield net resulted in a floating ball. Bouscaren beat the goalie to the ball and earned a hat trick with the resulting goal.
Unfortunately for Andover, Suffield kept its second quarter momentum to the end of the game, scoring five more times and defeating Andover 10-7. On the defensive side, Andover contained the perimeter well and crashed on set quickly.
Bouscaren said, “Although we had some bad decisions and mistakes, we all handled the pressure on the perimeter well, a skill we focused a lot on during practice and something we lacked during our last few games.”
Andover will play Deerfield this Saturday.
