Water polo: Naperville North boys, girls win sectional titles
It was a sweep for Naperville North Saturday at Neuqua Valley.
Both the Huskies boys and girls water polo teams won sectional titles, but they took different paths to hoisting their championship plaques.
The girls squad went wire-to-wire in defeating Metea Valley 13-8 , while the boys had to rally in the second half to score a 14-10 victory over Naperville Central.
What they both had in common, however, was a lock-down fourth quarter.
The boys shut out the Redhawks in the final period to secure their win, while the girls allowed only one harmless goal with under a minute remaining.
In the boys game, the opener on the card, Naperville Central sprinted to the lead.
The Redhawks took a 6-3 advantage after a goal by Ross DeZur to open the second quarter, and they still led 9-8 halfway through the third stanza.
“Coming out of the first quarter, we were down two or three goals, and that scared us a little bit,” said Mason Hofmann of the Huskies.
“We were able to rally in the second half, and that’s where we play our game.”
Naperville North grabbed an 11-10 advantage heading into the final seven minutes, where it was junior goaltender Caleb Uson’s time to shut the door.
Uson made four outstanding saves down the stretch, and when Brett Grady fed teammate Jack Reif for a score with under two minutes left to make it 13-10, the contest was essentially out of reach.
Hofmann and Reif each tallied 5 times for the Huskies.
“This feels great,” said Uson. “We’ve been working so hard for this all season and it isn’t ending.
“At halftime we talked about making them play our game. We couldn’t keep playing their game, we needed to use our speed on offense and defense."
Naperville Central, which will graduate 10 seniors, was led in scoring by DeZur with 4 goals.
“This (senior class) is one of the best groups I’ve ever had,” said Redhawks coach Bill Salentine. “They’re going to be missed both in the pool and the hallways.
“(Today) we came out with great intensity and took a lot of good shots. Then later in the game we stopped taking good shots. We might have been a little tired and they might not have had the confidence they needed.”
In the girls game, Huskies junior Payton Schrier found the net twice early as Naperville North raced to a 4-0 lead.
Then Metea Valley staged a ferocious comeback after intermission. When Allison Leslie scored a long range goal with four minutes left in the third, the Mustangs trailed just 8-7.
“At that point,” said Metea Valley coach Missy Hines, “I was thinking that my girls were playing the best game that they had ever played, and we had a chance to win this.
“When we played them (Naperville North) in conference, we lost to them by eight. We watched a lot of film and we practiced a lot to try and do better.”
Then late in the third period, Schrier fired in two consecutive goals to give the Huskies a little breathing room.
“I knew we had to pick it up and give it everything we had,” said Schrier. “We had to come back strong and win that third quarter.”
The junior led off the fourth with a quick goal, and Naperville North hit the target twice more (by Cate Czochara and Calista Jansen) to put the match out of reach.
Sarah Voakes scored four times for Metea Valley, while Schrier sent in six goals for the Huskies (32-1) and teammate Kelsey Wessel added three.
“This means everything to me,” said Wessel. “I love this team with all my heart, and all of our hard work paid off.”
Naperville North’s girls will play Hersey in the state quarterfinals at 4:30 p.m. Friday at Stevenson High School. The boys play in the state quarterfinals Thursday at 7 p.m., also at Stevenson, against Lincoln-Way East.