Wheeling springs forward, edges Prospect
With neither team quite a full strength as due to ongoing spring break activities, Monday's girls water polo meeting between Wheeling and Prospect might not be the perfect measure of either team's ability.
But as a key moment in the Mid-Suburban East race, that didn't matter much to either side.
Defending MSL champ Wheeling eked out a 7-6 victory over the Knights in a matchup of two teams that don't have many secrets from one another. After all, they share the same pool for practices and games.
"We knew it would be a tough game," said Prospect coach Natalie Tucker. "We were expecting all-out offense, all-out defense - and that's what we got."
Along with a steady dose of Theresa Godlewski, who led all scorers with 4 goals. She skipped in a shot near the end of the third quarter, putting the Wildcats up 7-5.
Prospect's Danielle McCallister scored her second goal of the game with 1:24 left in the game, pulling the Knights within a goal. But Wheeling was able to deny Prospect on its final two possessions to become the MSL East's only unbeaten team at 3-0 (and 5-3 overall).
Argelia Diaz scored twice for Wheeling, one of them on a penalty shot on a chance generated by Godlewski.
Diaz, a key performer from last year's divisional and overall MSL champ, likes the progress her team is making.
"I think things are going really well," she said. "We have a lot of new people, but everyone's learning really quickly, and we're always helping each other. We just have this confidence that we can make something special happen again this year."
Gracie Dix had a pair of goals for Prospect, and Niki Neumann and Megan Pfeiffer also scored for Prospect (4-3, 2-1). The Knights also got typically strong goalkeeping from three-year starter Lauren Broz.
"What we take away is that we did some things well - not quite enough to win," said Tucker, "but we'll try to take what we can from today's outcome and apply that toward the future."
Palatine 8, Fremd 7: The host Pirates generated a 6-2 lead by the half, then managed to hang on for an MSL West victory.
Caroline Wojtas scored 6 goals, made 3 steals and generated 5 kickouts for Palatine, and Hannah Jozefat had the other Pirates goals. Goalie Tess O'Brien stopped 16 saves and also had 2 assists for Palatine (9-3, 2-1).
Fremd (5-4, 2-1) got 3 goals from Rebecca Carlson, and 2 from Emma Hoffman and Emily Kini.
Rolling Meadows 6, Hersey 4: Erin Pletch scored 3 goals and Sara Luedloff had a pair to help Rolling Meadows (5-2, 2-1) pick up an MSL East victory and pull into a second-place tie in the MSL East.
Katie Lutz had 2 goals for Hersey (1-6, 0-3) as Mustangs goalie Besty Zanocco stopped 23 shots.
Conant 16, Barrington 4: The MSL West-leading Cougars (8-0, 3-0) picked up another divisional win as Carmen Rosas (9 goals) and Paulina Chowaniec (3 goals) led the scoring effort and Maddy Demaret stopped 15 shots and provided 4 assists and 4 steals.
Barrington (1-5, 0-3) got a pair of scores from Mia Latimer.
Buffalo Grove 9, Elk Grove 3: Alyssa Rosenorn had a pair of goals for the Grens as the visiting Bison (4-4, 2-1) earned an MSL East triumph.