It's a girl thing as Etnyre, Polakow battle

It happened for the first time last Friday, when Vernon Hills and Antioch met up in a boys soccer game.

Two female coaches, Shannon Etnyre (Vernon Hills) and Marni Polakow (Antioch) coached against one another.

It's never happened before in Lake County, although it has happened before in other areas across Illinois.

"I think it's pretty cool to be a part of something like that," Polakow said. "She's been one of my best friends since we've been kids.

"I'm just glad we got the opportunity here in 2008. I'm just surprised it's taken this long. Being a boys coach is really no big deal. Having women coaching (the boys) is no different if two guys were coaching them. "

Both coaches are from Lake County. Etnyre (Mackey) played high school soccer at Lake Zurich, and Polakow at Stevenson. Both followed similar paths from their younger days in club soccer, through high school and into collegiate soccer.

"It was awesome to coach against (Polakow)," Etnyre said. "We've known each other since we've been 10 years old. Coaching against her made it more fun for both teams. Hopefully, we can play against each other for years to come."

The game itself between Vernon Hills and Antioch ended in a 2-2 tie.

"You always want to win every game, Polakow said. "The competition for the two teams was already there for a hard-fought game."

"With our friendship, we both wanted to win," Etnyre said. "It was better it ended up in a tie. If one of us would've won, neither one of us would hear the end of it from the other."

IHSA seeding assignments: Here it is, the start of October, and we're just weeks away from the postseason and the state tournament.

There's a new look with the state tournament going to 3 classes. It will split up Lake County and give more opportunities to have more teams reach the finals in Naperville.

However, the way the sectionals are split up, there's a pronounced imbalance between the schools.

The sectionals had their seeding meetings this past week to determine their pairings, while others were put by the IHSA into regionals for seeding purposes.

Lake Zurich (Class 3A) was put into a regional with Barrington, Cary-Grove and Dundee-Crown. They'll all play in the Barrington regional. .

"I'm disappointed," Lake Zurich coach Mike Schmitz said. "It's unfortunate. I've always liked the way the sectionals were set up in the past.

"It does take away the importance of the season. For some reason, it's more geographic and travel."

The other regionals in the Barrington sectional consists of teams grouped together from the Fox Valley, North Suburban Prairie and Rockford schools. Regionals will be hosted by Huntley, McHenry, Rockford Guilford and Barrington.

The winner of the Barrington sectional meets up with the Wheaton North sectional.

Meanwhile, the Libertyville sectional (Class 3A) seedings came out Wednesday night. The group consists of 19 teams, also from the North Suburban, Mid-Suburban, East Suburban and Central Suburban, funneling into the Niles North sectional.

Predetermined sites are Glenbrook South, Mundelein, Palatine and Warren.

In Class 2A, the Grayslake Central regional was also preselected, with regionals at Marian Central, Lakes, Antioch and Hampshire.

Wauconda joins Crystal Lake Central, Marengo and host Marian Central. At Lakes, Grayslake Central, Grayslake North, Vernon Hills and the Eagles. Antioch will host Johnsburg, North Chicago and Richmond-Burton. The other regional consists of Belvidere, Belvidere North, Rockford East and Hampshire. The winner will meet up with the Chicago Academy sectional winner.