Slicing the ball into the front corner after forcing his opponent into the back of the court, Sean Kim ’18 deftly secured a win for Andover Boys Squash against Groton on Friday. Despite his victory, Andover lost the match 4-3.
The team went on to redeem itself later in the week with 7-0 wins against both Middlesex and St. Mark’s, propelling its record to 4-3.
In the matches against Middlesex and St. Mark’s, the team won nearly every game by a score of 3-0.
“In both of those matches, everyone focused on honing in their game and taking care of business,” said Captain David Tsai ’18.
Alex Bernhard ’19 said,“Middlesex tested our focus; they aren’t historically strong, so we had to make sure to still try our best and focus.”
Jack Lee ’20 and Jerry Yang ’17 stood out with strong performances this week. Tsai said, “Jack Lee deserves recognition for his technical play in his Middlesex match. Jerry Yang excelled on the court in all aspects of his game.”
Against Groton, Andover went into the match feeling confident but was ultimately unable to come away with the win.
Kim said, “It was all about execution, and I think we were happy about our overall performance. Most games were very close, and it was very disappointing that we didn’t get the win in the end.”
Tsai, Kim, and Lee secured Andover’s victories. Tsai and Kim won their matches 3-0, while Lee won his match 3-1.
Kim continued, “I’d say our performance was there from the first point… We need to improve mentally. Some of us lost close games that we could’ve won, and that’s part of learning.”
Bernhard said, “Groton is consistently good and has a strong program so we had to go into it prepared for a long match.”
As the team looks ahead, it hopes to keep improving its strategical skills.
Bernhard said, “I think experience is one of the things that will really help the team as the season goes on. [Head Coach Thomas Hodgson] runs practices and during matches provides really helpful tactical advice.”
Tsai added, “While watching our matches, he does an excellent job at finding our opponents weaknesses so we can exploit them in the next game.”
Next week, the team will face St. Paul’s, Tabor, Belmont Hill, Choate, and Westminster. Tsai said, “We have an extremely demanding week ahead of us, where we face five respective opponents both home and away. My goal is that we train hard this week and everyone executes come match time and we come away with a handful of W’s.”
