Jessica Vocaturo ’13 ripped a 35-yard shot over the defenders, over the goalie and bar-down to cap off Andover Girls Soccer’s 2-0 victory over Tabor on Saturday.
The win was a nice recovery after a disappointing loss to BB&N the night before.
Nekele McCall ’14 began the scoring against Tabor with a beautiful goal off a free kick, just after Hannah Guzzi ’14 drew a foul at the top of the box. McCall saw a gap in the Tabor wall and shot the ball into the lower corner of the net.
Vocaturo’s goal came later on in the first half. This season, Vocaturo leads the team in scoring, with a total of four goals in six games.
After having a slower start start to the season, things started to come together for Andover on Saturday. Andover was connecting passes and finding one another better than they have in previous matches.
Center midfielders McCall and Giovanna Pickering ’13 demonstrated technical ability and strategically distributed the ball to their teammates, creating tremendous offensive opportunities throughout the game.
The Tabor win proved to be memorable for Vocaturo in more ways than one.
“Saturday’s game against Tabor was my first game under the lights at Andover, and it was absolutely amazing. There was so much energy surging through the stadium. I couldn’t help but get excited. I thought the game went extremely well. We had great chemistry throughout both halves, and we couldn’t have asked for a better result,” she said.
Andover gained control of the game early and held onto it all the way to the end. “We played hard throughout the whole game. From start to finish, we outplayed Tabor. Everything seemed to go our way. We outworked and outplayed Tabor, and it resulted with a win for us,” McCall said.
The victory followed unfortunate 1-0 loss to BB&N on Friday night.
The combination of last Friday’s weather and BB&N’s turf field affected Andover’s play. The turf field, shorter and narrower than the fields Andover is used to playing on, and the constant downpour of rain made for an extremely fast paced and often frantic game.
“We started off slow and could not get anything going for us. We kept pushing, but nothing seemed to go our way. We played hard throughout and ended up not being able to capitalize,” said Alex Thomas ’15.
“BB&N got a sort of fluke goal towards the end of the game, and we still could not muster up anything. The scoreboard did not reflect the overall play of the game, as we were even throughout. We took the loss as a learning experience and we were not discouraged,” said Thomas.
Thomas also said that the loss has the potential to be a positive for the team.
“We made it a turning point in the season and used it to build character. We took the anger and frustration from the loss and converted into energy and drive in our game versus Tabor the next night. We used [the result from BB&N] to outplay and outwork [Tabor] for the win,” said Thomas.
Andover will look to thrive off of the recent win when it travels to Choate on Saturday. Next Wednesday, the girls will face Brooks at home.
