Volume CXXXVI, Number 12 May 24, 2014

THE PHILLIPIAN

Sports Winning All DayErr Day

Three Andover Teams BecomeNew England Champions

SOFTBALL

BOYSTENNIS

Andover Boys Baseball’s bats were on fire this past weekend as the team scored a total of 22 runs in two games in the Central New England Andover Prep School Base-ball League playoffs (CNE-SPL).

Andover won two games against Worcester Academy to capture its second title in two years.

“Winning back-to-back years is awesome. Last year was an unbelievable squad, and I thought it would be tough to match up, but our team never stopped fighting despite being on the playoff bubble just a week ago. We saved our best baseball for the end of the year, and it showed on Saturday,” said Co-Captain Rory Ziomek ’13.

Andover started off the day with a 10-7 win over Deerfield in the semifinals.

Andover got on the board early in the top of the first

when John Festa ’15 had an RBI ground out to send John Simourian ’16 home and give Andover a 1-0 lead. In top of the third, Andover tallied five runs.

The performance started off with David McCullough ’13 hitting a single to center field, allowing Corbin Lee ’13 to score. The next run came from Simourian, who scored off a wild pitch. Connor Far-rell ’13 then stepped up to the plate and hit a long triple to left field, bringing Festa and McCullough home.

Finally, Matt Hosman ’15 hit a sacrifice fly to allow Far-rell to score and give Andover a commanding 6-0 lead.

Deerfield crept back in the fifth inning, but Joey Verhae-gh ’13, Tim Superko ’13 and Hosman all scored to main-tain the five run lead and ulti-mately win the game.

Simourian was a major of-fensive factor for Andover as he went three for four hitting with an RBI and two runs scored.

“Early in the game we brought energy, and along with that came clutch hitting and early RBI’s. The guys re-ally came to play,” said Tim Salvadore ’15.

Salvadore allowed only one earned run and two walks over five innings, while strik-ing out three over five in-nings. Ziomek was also strong on the mound and allowed three earned runs and one walk with two strikeouts over two innings.

Andover faced the num-ber one seeded Worcester Academy in the finals, which it lost both games to in a dou-ble-header earlier this year. The team avenged its defeat and came out on top 12-8 to win the CNESPL champion-ship.

The game was back and forth through five innings, but Andover Andover nine runs over the fifth and sixth innings to take a lead. First, Andover loaded the bases and Festa was able to trot across home plate as Hosman drew

a walk.McCullough then scored

on a past ball during the next at bat, and Mark Sullivan ’14 hit an RBI single to bring Chris Hohlstein ’14 home. Si-mourian came in the clutch in the two at bats later on his 2 RBI single to center field, pushing Joey Verhaegh ’13 and Kenta Nomoto ’14 across home plate.

“We got out to a fast start. The game was back and forth, but we ultimately were able to pull away. We were really able to execute everything coach has been preaching in practice,” said Salvadore.

Andover continued its of-fensive prowess in the top of the sixth. Verhaegh hit a clutch double with three men on base, allowing Farrell and Hosman to score.

Nomoto then scored off of a line drive out by Lee, and Simourian brought Verhae-gh home off a single to center field.

To add a bit of insur-

ance in the top of the seventh, Hohlstein got on base with a double to left field. Farrell stepped up afterward and hit his second triple of the day, allowing Hohlstein to score.

Simourian was a big offen-sive contributor once again, hitting three of four with three RBIs, Farrell also hit his second triple in two games.

Tim Superko ’13 was key for Andover after pitching a complete game with seven strikeouts.

“It felt so g o o d t o win i t again, e s p e c i a l -ly being my last season at An-d o v e r ,” s a i d

Ziomek. “I couldn’t have picked a better group of guys to play with, and it was an honor to lead the team as Captain alongside Seamus [O’Neill ’13]. We really rallied around [O’Neill], who was out with a season-ending injury, and it was a terrific feeling to win it for him. It has been an unreal season, and I can’t wait to get on the field to beat Ex-eter one last time.”

Andover hopes to complete its season with a win when it faces

Exeter this coming Saturday.

BASEBALL

Andover Boys Tennis was victorious once again at the New England Invitational Tennis Association (NEITA) Class A Championship this past weekend.

Andover was seeded sec-ond with the first seed going to Taft, which had beaten Andover 4-3 early on in the season.

On Saturday in the quar-terfinals at Choate, Andover faced an early round elimi-nation by a young, yet formi-dable team from Kingswood Oxford.

After a loss from first dou-bles and a win at third, Chris Kralik ’16 and James Heaney ’14 had the decisive point on the line. Luckily, the pair proved clutch and won their tiebreak 7-4.

Three more singles wins

from Malachi Price ’13, Quinn Daly ’13 and Michael Huang ’15 gave Andover the 4-2 win.

With the win, Andover ad-vanced to the semi-finals later that day against Choate. An-dover drew upon confidence from a 5-2 trumping of the team a week earlier.

Wins across the board during doubles play granted Andover the doubles point. Drawing upon this momen-tum, Captain Alasdair Mc-Clintic ’13, Kralik and Daly all helped Andover to sweep Choate 4-0.

On the other side of the bracket, Hotchkiss defeated Taft to advance to the finals against Andover.

Going into the final on Sun-day, Andover set its eyes on the coveted silverware, but its quest was slightly prolonged since the team was forced to change location due to rain.

“We were all really focused

for the final against Hotch-kiss. We were annoyed to have to go all the way to Taft and then to Hotchkiss, but I was impressed on how we did not let that affect us,” said McClintic.

The match started with singles play where Daly, He-aney and Kralik efficiently closed out their opponents. A loss from McClintic made the score 3-1 with two matches unfinished.

Huang represented Ando-ver in one of the remaining matches. After falling behind and losing the first set 6-2, Huang rallied back and won the second set 7-5, overcom-ing a match point as well.

With both matches in the third set, Price lost and the pressure mounted on Huang to get the win.

But Huang fought through nonetheless. “I was down a match point and the thing

that kept me going was that their doubles would be tough,” Huang said.

With the entire team watching nervously on the sideline, Huang won 6-3 and sealed the game and champi-onship for Andover.

As soon as he won the last point the entire team charged the court. “I was kind of over-whelmed, so I didn’t think about it that much,” Huang added.

Huang, in his first year at Andover, is the only player to go undefeated this season.

“It was surreal. We had all been hoping to win New England’s throughout the season, and it could not have been a closer match,” said McClintic.

He added, “We all stood by and supported each other, and, as a Captain, there is nothing more satisfying than to see your

team come together in the finals.”

On Wednesday, Andover played Exeter and won 6-1, identical to the match the two rivals played earlier in the season at An-

d o -ver.

Daly, who

barely won the tiebreaker 14-12 during the teams’ last en-counter, dominated the court this time around and won in two sets.

The season, however, is not over. Andover plays in the NEPSITT this weekend where it looks to end the season on a high note.

With 24 strikeouts and seven RBIs from Co-Cap-tain Kayla Maloney ’13, Andover Softball took home the Big East Tour-nament Title for the third straight season.

By winning the tourna-ment, Andover became the first team in the tourna-ment’s history to win three consecutive championships.

“This Big East T o u r n a m e n t

field was highly com-petitive. Five of the dozen

g a m e s w e r e d e -cided by one r u n ,

two of them in nine innings. No game was easy, and our team played the hand it was dealt as well as it could, which is all a coach

can ask of his

players,” said Head Coach Peter Drench.

Ravenne Nasser ’15 kicked off the tournament on a strong note for Ando-ver, pitching seven strong innings to lead Andover to a 9-3 victory over Worcester.

“The Worcester game taught [Nasser] some im-portant lessons,” said Drench. “One was that pitchers can’t have their best stuff every time out but still have to perform. When she pitched her near-perfect game against Worcester two weeks earlier, Ravenne en-joyed rare command. In the interim, the Worceste team improved and she didn’t have it all going on Saturday. While scuffling, Ravenne competed hard and kept us in the game, the true test of

what a pitcher is made of.”Maloney and Nikki Pel-

letier ’13 were also instru-mental in the victory, tal-lying eight RBIs to help Andover advance to the next round.

Over the course of the season, Maloney and Pel-letier had combined for 12 extra-base hits and twen-ty-two RBIs—44 percent of Andover’s total runs batted in. The two did not let up in the tournament.

Later on Saturday, Maloney took the mound for her fifth time this sea-son, throwing a no-hitter en route to a 2-1 victory over BB&N. Maloney’s attempt for a perfect game was de-railed by four errors, a hit by pitch and a passed ball.

In the title game on Sun-

day, Maloney returned to the mound victorious, hold-ing Tabor scoreless over the final six innings as Andover beat last year’s finalist once again, 4-1.

“For us Seniors, [this was] our last home game at Andover,” said Co-Captain Abby Chung ’13. “When we got the second out in the last inning, Kayla [Maloney] and I looked at each other and we were both on the verge of tears. It was an incredi-bly emotional game, but I couldn’t have asked for a better final home game.”

Maloney’s performance was supported by Caitlin Clancy ’13 who went 2-3 with an extra-base hit and an RBI and Chung who had four quality-at-bats, a hit and an RBI. Chung has

gotten on base in more than half her at-bats this season.

Kasey Hartung ’14 was also a key contributor, scor-ing the winning run and playing spectacular defense at third base.

Maloney, Pelletier and Clancy were named to the “all-tourney” team in recog-nition of their outstanding play and exemplary leader-ship throughout the tourna-ment.

On Wednesday, Ando-ver blew out Brooks, over-whelming the team 16-4 to secure a perfect 12-0 record with one game left to play.

Andover will face rival Exeter on Saturday to cap off its exhilarating, and hopefully undefeated, sea-son.

COURTESY OF KAREN LEAVITT

By Kailash SundaramPHILLIPIAN SPORTS WRITER

By Andrew ZhengPHILLIPIAN SPORTS WRITER

By Patrick DalyPHILLIPIAN SPORTS WRITER

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