Girls water polo: Rubio's 8 goals lead Elk Grove over Warren
Guess who had a gem of a match on Monday?
Yep, the girl whose first name is pronounced ruby.
Junior Rubi Rubio preciously carved through the Warren defense to score a career-high 8 goals and helped lead the Elk Grove girls water polo team to a 13-2 nonconference triumph over visiting Warren.
Rubio netted the Grens' final four goals of the first half, the last two in the final minutes on a rebound 12-footer into an open net and one on an assist from senior captain Marina Mitrinovic to give the Grens a 5-2 advantage at intermission.
Rubio fired 4 more into the net in the second half as the hosts pulled away to their fourth win.
"I like to see what is happening in the first half and kind of go off the energy from that," said Rubio, whose previous career best was 6 goals. "We were missing a lot of key girls (Grace Schiller, Gabi Galan and Maya Dobaj due to illness). But we really connected well and played together well, especially our goalie Dominica (Ptak). She made really good passes and our drivers and wings did, too, so that really helps bring the team together."
Senior captain Natalia Kosciarz and Michelle Cobirzan each scored twice for the winners (4-6-1) while Mitrinovic added one in the Grens' explosive 8-0 second-half shutout.
"We kind of always hope to play good defense and good things will happen," said Elk Grove coach Jason Spjuth, a 2007 Rolling Meadows grad. "I was really quite happy. We were missing some girls but they really focused on defense. We keep telling them when they focus on good 'D' they're going to do phenomenal on offense and it kind of showed up today. We took advantage of some things we saw and were really happy with how they played."
Cobirzan was terrific on defense, collecting a team-record 11 steals.
Ptak played the whole game in goal.
"Dominica played as a freshman for us, then COVID happened her sophomore year and she didn't play as a junior," Spjuth said. "She came back this year and we are super happy she did. She's got a great arm and is very good in the huddle letting people know what she sees which is really nice. "Michelle Cobirzan had a phenomenal game, defensively. She has been great all season. And Natalia Kosciarz has been phenomenal, too. She's just aggressive and she was playing out of position today because our point was out. Natalia is a huge asset on offense with her speed. She can shoot and she can step back and play a key role on defense, taking the ball away. It's nice to have a bunch of people who can do some things really well."
Warren (0-4) scored first when captain and goalie Faith Harris, a Carthage recruit, lofted a nice pass to junior Leah Meyer, who skipped in a 12-footer at the 2:25 mark of the first quarter.
The Blue Devils tied the game at 2-2 with 4:29 left in the half when Kiley Rodriguez found the opposite top corner of the net from 10 feet out.
"That was Kiley's first goal of the season so that was super exciting for her to make that play," said Warren coach Carly Wright. "And Leah was keeping it steady the whole game.
"We're excited we get a rematch with them (at Elk Grove tourney later in season). We were coming off a break and I think our girls were a little tired and that kind of got in our heads a little. Overall, though, we really played a good game. The girls made changes and stayed relatively competitive which was good. We came out of the gate hot and then we got really tired."