Sigona helps St. Charles East sink St. Charles North
During the recently concluded girls basketball season, Kala Sigona proved to be a formidable frontcourt player for St. Charles East.
On Thursday, the 6-foot-1 senior showed her prowess in the pool as she tallied 5 goals to help lift the Saints to a 13-3 triumph over cross-town rival St. Charles North (1-6) in girls water polo action held at the Norris Aquatic Center.
"A lot of skills for basketball are also used for water polo - passing, shooting, teamwork," said Sigona, whose 3 consecutive second-period goals propelled the Saints to a 4-2 halftime advantage.
Thirty seconds into the game, St. Charles North took a 1-0 lead on a lofted shot by Vanessa Weygandt. The North Stars maintained their lead for more than 7 minutes until Sigona notched the equalizer off a long pass from goalie Katie Fillion.
"I was a little worried at the beginning," admitted Saints coach Maureen Sheahan. "They were really keeping up with us."
Sheahan's tactical decision to switch Juliet Suess to the outside and Sigona to the middle paid dividends throughout the last 3 periods as the Saints (3-1 in dual-meet games, 3-3-1 overall) scored 13 of the game's final 15 goals. Suess' game-high 6 goals all came in the second half.
"It worked really well," Sheehan said of the lineup tweak. "Juliet hasn't played the outside driver position for a couple years but she was a lot faster than her defender was so she could get around her.
"And Kala has a great reach so she can take a shot pretty good from the center spot."
Suess, who recorded 5 goals in the Saints' first-ever, 8-5 victory over the North Stars last season, wasn't overly concerned after her team fell behind early.
"It seems that this year we've been behind in our games a little bit and that just motivates us to go faster," said Suess. "We just look at each other and say, 'what are we doing, we can do this.'"
The Saints also received goals from Anna Greetis and Erin Arnoff, who enjoyed a dual role, combining with Fillion to make 13 saves in goal.
"It's really the end (of the game) that matters and we got there," said Suess, who dominated the second-half scoring with 6 of the Saints' 9 goals.
"It takes me a little bit to warm up the old arm but we got there eventually." Emily Dieter and Claire Bultema added goals for the North Stars.
"We didn't play well," said St. Charles North coach Nick Engel. "We didn't have sharp passing and we didn't play strong defense."
At the other end of the pool, the Saints celebrated both a cross-town victory and their solid start to the season.
"This is only our fourth year as a team," said Sheahan. "When we started out, we didn't win a single game four years ago. Then we slowly worked up and last year we won half our games.
"Now we're on our way to winning more than half (our games) this year. We're off to a great start."