Girls water polo: Conant exceeds its seed at Fremd

In a tense girls water polo sectional final at Fremd, No. 3 seed Conant was in a 6-6 tie with the top-seeded Vikings late in the fourth quarter Saturday.

After a Fremd shot missed the mark, Conant goalie Cam Rosas dropped a perfect pass in front of Olivia Konieczny on a quick counter-attack. She kept control of the ball and lobbed a shot over Fremd goalie Emma Jeronimus.

The goal with 42 seconds left ended up being the difference in Conant's 7-6 victory, and it seemed to surprise even the player who made it happen.

"It seems like a lot of times my shots don't go in," said Konieczny. "I usually hit the crossbar, or the post, or something else goes wrong. But this one, when it went in, it was like, 'I think maybe we just won.' "

Yes, for a second straight season, Conant is headed to the Elite Eight at Stevenson. The Cougars (19-12) will meet Mother McAuley in a quarterfinal matchup at 5:45 p.m. Friday.

All-conference choices Sam Wooley and Paulina Chowaniec both scored twice for Conant, with Hannah Lukas, Lea Cejvan and Konieczny getting 1 goal apiece.

"We were a little concerned with having the losses that ended up giving us the third seed," said Wooley, "but the bottom line is that whether we were the first seed or the last seed, we were not going to give up."

Mid-Suburban League champ Fremd led for much of the game, getting 2 first-half goals from sharpshooter Sarah Coombes and another from Becca Rutkowski to lead 3-2 at the half, and Fremd carried a 5-4 lead into the fourth quarter.

Conant tied it on a man-up goal from Chowaniec and went ahead briefly on a long goal from Lukas before Rutkowski tied it with 3:01 left.

With 2:22 remaining, Coombes earned a penalty shot but was denied by Rosas, setting the stage for Konieczny's deciding goal.

Coombes and Rutkowski both finished with 3 goals as Fremd finished its season with a record of 25-6.

Conant coach Justin Bickus said a midseason stretch when the team was without both Wooley and Chowaniec due to illness might have ended up benefiting his group.

"Not having them for a while really ended up helping some of our players - like Hannah and Olivia for sure, and probably a few others," he said. "And Cam has really developed in goal for us. The last few weeks, that's made a huge difference."

On Rosas' dramatic late penalty-shot save, she explained her technique.

"You just have to tell yourself over and over, 'I can do it, I can do it,' " she said. "Then you look straight ahead - don't give anything away by looking to the sides - and you watch for the angle of the arm, the rotation of the ball and then react."

And then start making plans for the Elite Eight.