Sports

Girls Hockey Extends Its Undefeated Streak 12-0

Ava Murphy ’24 moves across the ice and towards the net.

After a 4-1 win against St. Paul’s and a 6-0 shutout against Lawrence Academy, Girls Hockey continued to dominate its opponents. Their record now stands at 12-0.

The goal for these games was to generate momentum from the beginning. Peyton Kennedy ’25 shared that focused practices and offensive strategies enabled the team to begin and end the game strongly. 

“We want to start strong from the first period and then even if we do succeed at starting strong, we want to just keep that throughout the game… Definitely our power plays [were effective]. We’ve been working a lot on them and we scored a few goals on power plays during the game,” said Kennedy.

Goalie Avery Rodeheffer ’25, who has acquired more than 70 saves this season, credited the D-zone for optimizing the team’s chances to score. 

“I think the defense really stepped up and they created a handful of offensive plays just like a lot of defense generated offensive plays and opportunities,” said Rodeheffer.

Rodeheffer believes that success on the ice begins in practice. Following Andover’s sweep over Lawrence Academy this Wednesday, Rodeheffer emphasized the importance of consistently working on drills and translating it into game plays. 

“I think everything from practice should be what we want to see in a game. So that means work ethic, compete level, communication. If we do it in practice, then it should happen in the game; and if we don’t do it in practice, those are the things that are going to let us down in the game. Those would be the breakdowns that would lead to us not doing well in games,” said Rodeheffer.

The team hopes to accumulate goals and build on their skill sets to take on the New England Prep School Athletic Conference (NEPSAC). Thus far, the team has 13 remaining games to look forward to on their way to the championship. Kennedy explained that the team is motivated to win.

“It’s pushing us to work harder because we want to keep our undefeated season and all of our goals in the end is just to win NESPACS, so if we’re going to get there we want to keep it up. We’re taking one game at a time,” said Kennedy.

Sharing similar sentiments, Rodeheffer commented on how the team hopes to sustain their undefeated season.

“It’s all about what’s ahead of us… At the end of the day, we’re not even halfway through the season, and no one talks about who did well at the beginning of the season. It’s always what happened at the end, so we want to keep up the momentum and head towards NEPSACS and continue maintaining this strong lead and just take the second half of the season with everything that we have,” said Rodeheffer.

Andover will face St. Mark’s on the road this Saturday.