In the absence of star player and Co-Captain Alex Tamkin ’14, Andover Boys Volleyball disappointed against a newly-formed Exeter team.
In a double header last Saturday against Wilbraham and Exeter, Exeter was the dominant force, despite that this is its first year on the volleyball circuit.
“We came out in the first game tired, and we lacked energy. Throughout the day we played more slowly than we are used to,” said Thayer Anderson ’15.
“This week we were missing our top player, [Tamkin], so while we tried to be aggressive, we knew that one of our key pieces offensively was missing. We played a sound, offensive game. Unfortunately, we did not do as well as we would have hoped,” said Oli Chernyk ’15.
Against Wilbraham, Andover secured a 3-1 victory.
Andover trailed slightly in the beginning at 10-12, but eventually found itself up 24-20. The team had slight difficulty capitalizing on the set point, dropping four consecutive points before winning the set 26-24.
In the second set Andover was once again trailing, but Kade Call ’14 and Andra Gusman ’14 served the team to a 25-20 victory.
After losing the third set 25-21, Andover looked to rebound in the fourth as it quickly sprung to a 12-3 lead. Wilbraham was unable to reach Andover in time, and Andover took the fourth set by a commanding ten points, along with the match.
Exeter and Wilbraham played out their game immediately after, putting a halt to any of Andover’s momentum and leading to a slow start its match against Exeter. Exeter beat Wilbraham 3-1.
“I think that after the first match, the window between the two definitely caused us to come out very poorly against Exeter, and is probably a lot of the reason why the match slipped away from us,” said Anderson.
Careless mistakes and miscommunication saw the score jump to 9-16 in the first set. Suffering from the long break, Andover let the first game slip away 16-25.
A small 5-3 lead in the second set looked promising for Andover, but it was quickly swept away 7-9 to 9-16. Exeter’s strong game kept Andover from regaining the lead, and the score once again mounted to 16-25.
Chernyk said, “Anytime that you are not playing your best volleyball, morale can sink, and it’s on us to fight that, and keep playing,”
With the match on the line Andover surged back against Exeter. Although the team still lost 22-25, Andover was able to perform closer to its standards in the final set.
“At times I felt that our energy level was abysmal, and we need to pick that up. Though Wilbraham had a pretty athletic team, their skills were very unpolished, and we were able to take advantage of that. Exeter played with a lot of energy; they played like they wanted to win,” said Chernyk.
Andover will face Choate and NMH at home on Saturday.
