St. Charles N. cruises by St. Charles E.

Whatever drama still remained evaporated in less than a minute.

Thursday evening at St. Charles East, the St. Charles North girls water polo team struck for 3 goals in a 43-second span to eliminate all doubt in an eventual 14-2 victory over its crosstown rivals.

St. Charles North senior Claire Bultema was the dominant personality in the Saints’ pool, scoring twice, assisting on 7 other goals and collecting 12 steals against St. Charles East.

“(Bultema) is kind of like our point guard,” St. Charles North coach Nick Engel said. “The offense goes through her.”

The North Stars’ senior leader scored the opening goal, the first of 4 unanswered scores for the North Stars, who never looked back in winning for the sixth time in 10 tries this spring.

“Almost of her assists were to me, and I was wide open,” St. Charles North striker Maddie Jones said of her senior teammate. “The (Bultema) assists were a big difference (in the match).”

Jones tallied the first of her match-high 5 goals with less than three minutes to play in the opening period, which featured Bultema scoring both of her goals.

Mallory Hecht added the first of her pair of scores to give the North Stars a 4-1 advantage after the first seven minutes.

The teams’ offensive display was wanting in the second period as Bultema broke a scoreless frame with 3:14 remaining.

“This is obviously our big rivalry game,” Bultema said. “We wanted to show East what we could do. Now that we have our defense down, we’re working on our offense.”

“Our coach always says that if you play defense, the offense will come,” added Jones.

Had it not been for the final minute of play in first two quarters, it would have been a fruitless exercise for the host Saints (1-6).

Senior Vicky Salzmann scored with two seconds to play in the first period and added the Saints’ other score with 41 seconds remaining before halftime.

“I couldn’t pinpoint one thing,” Salzmann said of the Saints’ dearth of scoring opportunities. “We need to talk more and get open.”

The one-sided match could have been even worse had not 4 St. Charles North shots clanked off the Saints’ crossbar in the opening half.

In addition, St. Charles East keeper Jeneva Newman stopped 23 shots on the game, including several blistering efforts from point-blank range.

With St. Charles North leading 5-2 at the break, the North Stars ended all suspense less than midway through the third period.

Jessica Leal found the back of the Saints’ net with 4:43 left, and Bultema and Hecht added scores 19 seconds apart to give St. Charles North a commanding 8-2 lead with four minutes to play in the third.

The North Stars would ultimately whitewash the Saints in the second half, scoring 9 times without an answer.

“That’s what I expect from our girls,” Engel said. “I didn’t think it would be that wide of a gap. They finally understand that it’s a team game.”