Naperville Central makes the right moves
Naperville Central boys water polo coach Bill Salentine believes strongly that the key to playing another day in the postseason is a team's ability to adjust when circumstances call for it.
The Redhawks are going to the state finals for the first time since 2011 because they adjusted when needed to hold off Neuqua Valley 12-9 on Saturday in the sectional final.
Naperville Central (29-2) heads to Stevenson HIgh School in Lincolnshire for an 8:15 p.m. Friday state quarterfinal contest against Lyons Township. Lyons won its own sectional Saturday with a 15-6 victory over Brother Rice.
"There was never any panic, but a little bit of urgency a couple of times," Salentine said. "We stayed within our game, but we have specific game plans that we learn and if one thing isn't working, we adjust."
This was a contest between the sectional's top seed and the No. 2 seed. Naperville Central and Neuqua (25-8) are also not that far apart in the illpolo.com poll, with the Redhawks at No. 2 and the Wildcats are at No. 5.
Neuqua took a 1-0 advantage 1:17 in the contest when Joey Dalesandro found Scott DePuy near the net. DePuy led the Wildcats with 5 goals.
Naperville Central responded with 4 unanswered goals from Christian May, Philip Emden and Nick Walker twice before Neuqua coach Adam Hoffer called a timeout with 1:49 left in the quarter to try and cool off the Redhawks. Walker finished with 4 goals. Kyle Jackson paced the Naperville Central offense with 5 goals.
Neuqua's timeout worked as Simon Shatinsky scored with 1:09 left followed by Brett Whaley's goal with just 38 seconds remaining.
It was a goal exchange in the second quarter as Naperville Central led 6-5 at halftime. Walker and Jackson scored for the Redhawks. Ian Ivkovich and Dalesandro hit net for the Wildcats.
Late in the third quarter, DePuy scored, assisted by Lucas Becker, to pull Neuqua to within 1 of the Redhawks. May scored with 13 seconds left and that started a streak of 4 unanswered goals by the Redhawks to give them a 12-7 lead with 3:24 left in the game. Jackson scored twice in that span and Walker once.
It was hold-your-breath time for the Redhawks as DePuy scored twice with less than three minutes left in the contest to keep his team in the game until the very end.
Winning goalie Joe Lawrence made 10 saves.
"Obviously, you can see that we're stoked. We've worked a long time for this," Jackson said. "I think the biggest factor for us is that this is family community. I've been playing with a bunch of these guys since I was 5-6 years old."
Neuqua was making its first sectional final appearance since 2009. Hoffer said that despite losing eight seniors from this season's team, he believes the Wildcats can continue to progress like they did this season.
"I think we did pretty much what we wanted to today. What killed us was we were 3-for-10 in defending with a man down. When we played Naperville North, we were 10-for-11," he said.