In its most recent season in 2019, Andover Field Hockey finished with a record of 13-3
Andover Field Hockey’s offense has started the season strongly with the team scoring 12 goals in two games.
With an amazing save by Ellie Parker ’25 on Saturday as well as an incredible defensive play by Georgia Adams ’22 on Wednesday, Andover Girls Field Hockey began its season with a great start. The team kicked off its season with two wins, 3-1 against Thayer on Saturday, and 9-0 against Lawrence Academy on Wednesday.
According to Julia Hall PG’22, each game does not start on the field, but it begins in the locker room.
Hall said, “There’s one thing that we do before each game, where we turn the lights off in the locker room and we play a motivational speech. It’s dark and everyone’s yelling at the end, so it’s really good team bonding time; like everyone’s in the same mindset. So that was a really great way to get the team to be involved.”
In preparation for games, not only does the team practice on the turf, but it also focuses largely on building strong relationships within the team.
“We had a scrimmage against St. Mark’s on Wednesday which was great. We’ve been doing lots of practices and we’ve been doing team dinners. We had a team lunch, just lots of bonding and being together,” Annabel Curry ’25 said.
In comparison to the game on Wednesday, Parker and Shea Freda ’24 felt as though the game against Thayer was more of a challenge.
“The Thayer game was tough; they scored pretty early on… Then we got three goals pretty quickly after, so we felt good after the Thayer game,” Parker said.
Freda added, “It was pretty hard for us because the Thayer game was the game that kind of got us back into our groove and into our momentum. Once we did, we played really well. In [Wednesday’s] game, the team was a little less strong, so it was nice to just practice on our passing.”
The team took Wednesday’s game as an opportunity to practice passing and other skills that they have been working on over the course of the week, according to Hall.
“What we focused on as a team was more passing because obviously, it wasn’t our best competition. It was all really about the teamwork aspect and where we can translate that into using it for our next game in which we’ll have better competition on Saturday,” Hall said.
Though the team won both of its games, it feels as though it can work to improve certain skills such as passing and spacing, according to Hall and Freda.
“I think that we improved as we went through the game, but there’s still a lot of room to grow with our passing. I think as a collective team, we can work on getting our eyes up to see the next pass instead of running into people and run through,” Hall said.
Freda added, “I would say our spacing sometimes needs a little work. Just that making smart passes and getting back on track and communication is something that we always need to work on.”
Andover’s next matchup is against Loomis Chaffee on Saturday at 2:30 p.m., and it will look to continue its undefeated season.
