Sports

Andover Boys Hockey Capitalizes on Penalty Kill to Defeat Loomis

With one player out on a penalty kill, Sean O’Connell PG’19 slid the puck past a Loomis Chafee defender’s stick, through his legs, and got a shot on net, scoring an essential goal that put Andover Boys Hockey in the lead during the third period.

O’Connell’s goal helped lead Andover to a 5-3 victory over Loomis Chaffee at home on Saturday. Despite this win, Andover fell later in the week to Deerfield 4-3 in overtime on Wednesday. The team’s record now stands at 12-5-2.

Defensively, Charlie Archer ’20 anchored the team in goal against Loomis, according to Tyler Little PG’19.

“I think the best play was a big glove save that Charlie Archer had late in the third period…It was a two on one for Loomis. Their forward slid the puck over, across the crease, the guy crashing the net. [Charlie] had to dive across with his glove outstretched and was able to snag the puck out of the air,” said Little.

According to Co-Captain Christian Powers ’19, Andover spent the majority of its practice time focusing on its power play and penalty kill, which aided in Andover’s success on Saturday.

Powers said, “We changed our power play. In this game, we used a 1-3-1, which is different than what we usually do. During the first power play of the game, we actually scored a goal.”

William Hughes ’22 said, “We worked on our power play a lot and also our penalty kill, which both ended up being successful.”

Due to a multitude of injuries, Andover took short shifts and utilized each other to compensate for the lack of depth on its bench, according to Powers.

“Over the past couple of games, we had a lot of injuries, so it was important for us to kind of have each other’s backs…In the past couple of games, we were taking too long a shift, so we would be tired in the third period, but we took shorter shifts this game. I think we all felt more refreshed in the end of the game,” continued Powers.

Mac Carso PG’19 said, “I think we played well [against Loomis]. We had a short bench, but people fought through and battled hard until the end. We didn’t get down after we got scored on first and that really helped us.”

On Wednesday, Andover lost in overtime to an underestimated and quick Deerfield team, 4-3, according to Powers.

Powers said, “I thought Deerfield was a good, disciplined team, but I did not think they were nearly as skilled as us. An interesting play was their first goal. They knocked the puck out of our goalie’s glove after the whistle and somehow the referees counted the goal. We struggled a lot with faceoffs and also staying composed.”

Carso added, “The game could have been a lot better, it was a tough loss. They were a big and fast team but not the most skilled. A challenge was getting hacked and held by the other team.”

Moving forward, Andover looks to improve on its possession in the offensive zone, according to Powers. Andover will face Belmont Hill at home on Friday