Boys water polo: Lawson's OT heroics send Conant past Palatine, to state
Conant's Noah Lawson knew he had to be patient.
Despite scoring 5 goals earlier in the game, Lawson was also stopped just as many times on point-blank shots.
"At the start, I was shooting when I didn't think I should have been," Lawson said. "I wanted to shoot and take my time when I shot so I could move the goalie. I was rushing my shots and I didn't do that in overtime."
Lawson heeded his own advice, scoring twice in overtime to help lift the Cougars to a 10-9 win over Palatine in the sectional boys water polo finals at Conant Saturday.
Conant (13-4) advances to the state quarterfinals next Thursday at Fenwick in Oak Park. Conant, which has advanced to the state finals for the third consecutive time they have been contested, will face Stevenson at 4:15 p.m.
"Not quite the way we wanted it to play out," said first-year Conant coach David Jonen. "Out guys were just able to stick with it and keep their heads in the game. I am very proud of them."
It was a tight game throughout, which was expected since Conant had knocked off Palatine earlier this year 11-10. Palatine, however, was playing Saturday without Max Adame, who was red-carded in Friday's sectional semifinal.
The teams traded their first 4 goals. Cayden Hilgers, Dmytro Khomyak, Henry Gabriel and Hilgers scoring for Palatine while Patrick Reeko scored for Conant and Lawson added 3 goals for the Cougars.
Neither team was able to surge ahead thanks to the strong keeper play by Palatine's Patryk Maslowski and Conant's Michal Chowaniec.
Conant took its first lead on a goal by Ali Wahbeh with 3:45 left in the third quarter. Palatine tied it just 18 seconds later on a penalty shot by Alex Antoniv.
Lawson answered with a penalty shot goal on the Cougars' next possession to make it 6-5. In the fourth quarter, with Lawson drawing tons of attention from Palatine's defenders, he slipped a pass to Nathan Hall, who put the Cougars up 7-5 with 3:34 to play.
That appeared to be a commanding lead until 1:38 to play when things took a wild turn.
Palatine had a one-man advantage thanks to a penalty on Conant. When a second penalty was called on Conant, the first player re-entered illegally. To add to that, that same player had already accumulated his third major foul and was disqualified.
The officials awarded Palatine 2 penalty shots. Antoniv scored on both attempts to help send the game into overtime, tied 7-7.
In overtime, Antoniv scored to put the Pirates up 8-7. But that was the last lead for Palatine as Wahbeh tallied for Conant to tie the game at 8-8 with a minute left in the first overtime session.
Lawson then took over. With Palatine defenders draped over him, he scored just before the end of the first overtime session. He then scored again in the second session with 1:44 left to make it 10-8.
Jack O'Connell scored for Palatine with just 9 seconds left to cut the margin to 10-9. Conant then was able to swim out the clock.
"It was a great game for everybody going back and forth there," Palatine coach Joe Grzybek said. "This has been one of the hardest years to get through for everybody and I am very proud of our guys."