A statement victory for Naperville North

The Naperville North girls water polo team did not have much preparation time for Monday's 9-3 victory over visting Mother McAuley.

The time before the contest was well spent, however, as the Huskies (12-1), ranked No. 3 in the illpolo.com poll, had a strong showing at Friday and Saturday's Mike Murphy Invite at Fenwick High School. Naperville North was especially strong in its last two contests, losing to No. 2 St. Ignatius by 1 goal and beating No. 7 Lyons by 1 goal.

The Huskies are usually highly ranked by illpolo.com but haven't had a chance to battle the teams ranked just above them or just below them to give that ranking a workout. That's not the case this season.

"We hadn't played teams like that (St. Ignatius and Lyons) before this season and it was good to play them and it was nice to see what can happen," said Naperville North's Katie Horn, who scored 3 goals.

And the Huskies had a tough challenge in the Mighty Macs. Although Mother McAuley is 7-12, it's ranked 15th and facing teams like Naperville North is a big reason.

"We want to play all the top teams and play all the tough teams," said Mighty Macs coach Vanessa Carroll. "I was very happy with how we played. We're starting to click. We just need to finish strong all 4 quarters."

And Mother McAuley did get off to a strong stfart, taking a 1-0 lead just 45 seconds into a the game on a goal by Maggie Hennigan. About three minutes later, Horn scored her first goal on a shot that was a meter or two past the midway point of the pool. Teammate Taylor Stoner gave the Huskies their first lead with 20 seconds left, but Claire Mueller tied it up for Mother McAuley with just nine seconds left in the opening quarter.

Two more goals by Horn gave Naperville North a 4-2 lead at halftime.

The second half saw the Huskies able to penetrate further into the Mighty Macs defense and get closer to goalie Gena Payton, who made 11 saves in the game as Naperville North outshot Mother McAuley 20-8.

Eley Matern opened the scoring for Naperville North in the third quarter and then Jillian Eiken scored her first of 4 goals later in the period just a meter or two from the net. She scored three more times in the final quarter.

"McAuley was a solid team. They woke us up early on and we stayed calm and finished off the game," Eiken said.

Winning goalie Christina McBride made 5 saves for the Huskies.

Naperville North coach Andy McWhirter was impressed with how his team handled its last couple of days of competiton.

"The girls found out they can finish very well. It was a big weekend and we went right into a game on Monday. There were some tired legs, but they were able to finish through, saw the adjustments that needed to be made and started to tire Mother McAuley out," he said.

Naperville North is right back into the pool Tuesday with a trip to No. 19 Neuqua Valley. Game time is 6 p.m.