Water polo: Naperville North boys, girls win sectional championships in convincing fashion
Kelly Reif has built something special at Naperville North and the boys water polo coach was not about to use the phrase “rebuild” even after five of seven starters graduated from last year’s state championship squad.
She believed in this year’s group of Huskies and now she has claimed five straight sectional crowns and heads into Tuesday’s Hinsdale Central supersectional round against Brother Rice looking for a shot at defending Naperville North’s state title.
The Huskies followed up Friday’s 9-8 semifinal win over top-seeded Waubonsie Valley with a 12-6 defeat of sectional host Hinsdale Central in Saturday morning’s sectional title game.
Naperville North’s girls team is also moving on after knocking off Naperville Central 9-2 in Saturday’s second match at Hinsdale Central.
Caden Tsao, who did start on last year’s boys championship squad, tallied three of his six goals as the Huskies blitzed the Red Devils with a dominant 6-1 first quarter.
“This is the goal we’ve been working on all season,” Reif said after celebrating in the Hinsdale Central pool with the sectional championship plaque and the rest of the program’s coaches and players.
“Obviously last year coming off a state championship but graduating almost everyone … I basically have three kids that got wet last year that we had in the water here. We graduated everyone including our goalie and so there was a lot of getting the kids to believe in themselves. We’ve improved so much over the season. I told them no matter what happened I was so incredibly proud of how far they’ve come this season and I meant it.”
Reif was even more proud after the way the team played this weekend. In the final, the offense was clicking with crisp passes and the defense was led by JD Sandford, who had a big impact even though he left in the second period with an injury.
“We came out hard and fast. That was nice,” said Sandford, who suffered a broken nose earlier this year and reinjured his nose on Saturday, but not before he had several takeaways and kept the Hinsdale Central attack at bay. “It’s insane how much our team has grown since the start of the season.”
With Tsao’s three scores and two more from Landon Fennema, the Huskies made a statement early on.
“We came out and we just trusted our skills,” sad Tsao who scored the game’s first goal less than one minute in off a pass from Axel Sujewicz, and later grabbed a high pass and in one motion fired home the Huskies’ sixth score late in the opening quarter. “We trusted our ability. We stayed strong and we trusted our team. It is very cool. We did graduate a lot of players, but we trusted each other and we worked toward our goals.”
The other returning starter for the Huskies is John Riordan, who scored three goals and is ready for another trophy chase.
“We knew they were going to be more physical than us,” Riordan said. “That’s just a thing Hinsdale Central always had. They always had size. We had to beat them by our brains, beat them technically, so we knew that we were going to have to be quick on our drives and quick with help defense. Huge shoutout to JD (Sandford). He’s one of the biggest players on our team and being a body in there that we can use.”
When Sandford was hurt late in the second quarter, the score was 6-1 and he was confident his teammates would finish off the win.
“I’m not mad at all,” he said. “It was great seeing my team get up early and I had the confidence that they would be able to get it done.”
For the Red Devils (22-9), who advanced to the finals after beating Naperville Central 10-5 on Friday, Bogdan Ivkovic led the way with three goals while Joe Kearney, Jack Driscoll and Nate Carmody each tallied one.
“Quarters two and three were great,” Red Devils coach Christina Brodell said. “We shut them down. But it was a tough start. Sometimes you can’t come back from that. But the boys did a great job. This is our best season in my 14 years of coaching. We had never made it to sectional final game and never had such a winning season.”
Girls sectional final: The Huskies (29-1) fell behind 1-0 but led 4-1 after one quarter and 5-2 at the half on their way to advancing to Tuesday’s supersectional under first-year head coach Andy Bax.
“We’ve been talking about survive and advance one game at a time. Don’t look ahead … take care of things first,” said Bax, whose team knocked off Metea Valley 16-1 in Friday’s semis.
Junior Ava Podkasik, who leads the team with 50 goals, scored twice in the first quarter on her way to three tallies on Saturday.
“We knew it was going to be a hard game,” Podkasik said. “Central’s a great team and we knew they were going to give it their all obviously because it’s win or go home. I feel like we just had really good ball movement and we adjusted with the way they were playing.”
Podkasik, whose twin sister Mia also in on the team, believes the Huskies’ tight unit helps them excel in the water.
“I just feel like we’re best friends in and out of the pool and that really helps us,” she said. “Our chemistry is really good with like knowing where the ball needs to go, who’s going to be open, who’s driving. We don’t even really need to talk most of the time, but when we do it works even better.”
Cate Czochara and Molly Depies each scored twice for Naperville North and goalie Rugi Stackevicious turned in another strong effort. Next up is Tuesday’s supersectional matchup with Lincoln-Way East.
Czochara, a 4-year varsity player and 3-year starter, has come a long way since her freshman campaign.
“It’s gone kind of full circle,” said Czochar, a team captain. “Freshman year I looked up to the captains so much and I was a bench player. I felt so great just being on a team that is so successful historically. Now, we’re here, the second seed in the state. I’m really proud of our team. It’s exactly how I wanted it to look.”
For the Redhawks, the future is bright as a talented group of underclassmen led the way to a 21-12 campaign. Sophomores Molly Moore and Maria Danborn had stellar seasons while being a part of a roster that featured six sophomores and four freshmen.
Danborn was great in the nets all year and Moore, who tallied a career-high 7 goals in Friday’s win over Hinsdale Central, led the team in scoring this spring.
“We saw a lot of growth this season and we’re really excited with how we performed today. They worked really hard. We just want to continue with that momentum moving forward,” second-year coach and former Redhawks player Haley Green said.
Moore and freshman Elyse Gensler tallied the two goals for Naperville Central in the finals.
“They’re an incredible team,” Moore said of the crosstown rivals. “But I am just excited to see what our future can be. We have so many underclassmen on the team and I’m excited to see where we can go.”