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Athlete of the Week: Will Godbout ’20 Leads the Team After Starting on JV3

Will Godbout ’20 has scored 3 goals thus far in the season.


Playing through the JV program for his first two years at Andover, Will Godbout ’20 made the Andover Boys Varsity Soccer Team his Upper year. He now plays as a striker for the team and scored his third goal of the season against St. Paul’s this past Saturday.

According to teammate Giovanni Pagliuca ’23, Godbout sets a high standard for the team.

“My first memory with [Godbout] is from my first day of Varsity tryouts. I remember being on the same team as him for a scrimmage, [and] remember him being very supportive and scoring lots of goals,” said Pagliuca.

Due to his leadership and offensive impact, Godbout has been named The Phillipian’s Athlete of the Week.

When did you start playing soccer?

I’ve been playing soccer since I was four. I played when I was a kid, but I eventually quit in sixth grade because I was more of a baseball player, then I picked it back up seriously last year over the summer.

How did you get involved in the sport at Andover?

I had played JV3 my [Junior] year and JV1 my [Lower] year, and then I injured myself in baseball, so I started playing a lot more soccer. I honestly just liked it more than baseball. It’s a lot more physical, it’s a lot more active, and I was getting bored with baseball, so that’s what got me interested initially. Also, a lot of my really good friends were on the team last year so preseason was really fun, and the more I played with them and when I made the team, it just became more and more fun.

How would you describe the team dynamic?

The team dynamic is not always serious, so a lot of the time it’ll be pretty casual, but all of us are super close friends. It’s interesting because not many of us are friends outside of the team or originally came into the team being friends, and there’s a lot of different ages. So it’s cool that all of us can come together as a team and be a pretty close-knit community.

What are your goals for this season?

My goal for this season [is] to make playoffs… [Co-Captain] David [Wang ’20] and I were talking a lot over the summer about how that’s what we wanted to do. Just sort of on a smaller scale, I think [another goal is] getting every single player on the team on the same page, which we have been doing for the most part, [and that] is something we want to keep improving on.

Do you have a favorite memory of the season so far?

My favorite memory was [at our game] against Choate. I scored a goal in the last fifteen seconds to win, so that was pretty cool.

What game has been your favorite this season and why?

My favorite game was probably the Milton game. We had struggled a bit initially in the season, it was pretty early on. Milton’s a really good team, and we were able to beat them on Smoyer [Field], so it was a really huge moment for our confidence and our chemistry as a team. I think it was a turning point early on.

What are you looking forward to for the rest of the season?

I’m looking forward for us [to] hopefully [continue] to get better. Pretty much every single day [we have] gotten better and better, in practice and in games. I think that we have the chance to be a really, really good team if we can all come together and play our best. So, I’m looking forward to hopefully seeing that happen and then hopefully playoffs.