Girls water polo: Fremd continues undefeated season with win over Conant

In the third period of Fremd's 10-2 Mid-Suburban League victory over visiting Conant on Wednesday, Vikings senior Reese Winegar had the 2 goals that stretched a 6-1 halftime lead to 8-1.

But scoring goals is hardly the only part of Winegar's game that helps makes Fremd a favorite to win a second straight Mid-Suburban West title under third-year coach Theresa Knowles.

"Reese is like our quarterback," Knowles said of her three-year varsity player. "In water polo, the person who has the most assists doesn't necessarily get the most recognition but Reese definitely knows what is happening in the game at all points of time. She is a great communicator. You can put her in any position and she is going to perform."

The Vikings have performed quite successfully thus far, going undefeated in eight matches (6-0-2 and 3-0 in the MSL West).

Last spring, they fell to Hersey in the MSL championship.

"We tied Hersey (5-5 on March 15) in the Naperville North tournament," Winegar said. "So that was a good start for us to kind of show us what we need to fix."

Fremd had things fixed pretty well from the get-go Wednesday, getting three goals from junior Caterina Gaido and one from senior May Allen to lead 4-0 after one period.

Gaido finished with 4 goals, also scoring in the second period.

"She is just a very strong player," Knowles said. "It's really hard to guard her because she is also very knowledgeable. She is also a state swimmer (freestyle sprinter).

"But it's not just Cat. We have a whole well-rounded team of girls who have a ton of experience. And a ton of experience playing with each other which is the biggest thing. They all know each other's game so well."

"I coach a lot of the Fremd girls in the summer so I am pretty familiar with them and they are great players," said Conant’s 17th-year coach Justin Bickus. "They're a team with experience. Most of their starters are on the junior Olympics team. I like those girls. They did what they needed to do today."

Senior Kaelah LaFortune scored the first goal for the Cougars (4-5, 1-2) in the second period and classmate Nora Bestor had their other in the final quarter.

"I thought we played them tough," Bickus added. "But they played tough. If we made a mistake, they capitalized."

Also scoring for the Vikings was junior Aubrey Schinkel (second period) and senior Lauren Bennett, who netted the final two goals of the game.

"I think the key today was just watching what we needed to do on offense because they kept dropping on defense," said Winegar, who is looking to play water polo at the Division III level. "We just kind of needed to say, 'Hey, that's what they're doing' and we needed to make that quick pass."

And with Winegar, Fremd has its engineer to lead things in the water.

"I really enjoy being able to help other people learn what's going on," Winegar said. "I just play the position wherever Coach tells me to go."

"I think the key for us was just a lot of movement," said Knowles, a Fremd math teacher who competed in swimming, water polo and basketball when she was a student at Wheeling High School.

"It's a lot of trying to get all of our girls to be offensive, that's something we've been trying to push all season, just so the opponent can't guard one or two girls. We want any one of our players they're going to drop off on to be an offensive threat. That's kind of our game plan."

And with five different Vikings contributing goals, the game plan worked quite well Wednesday.