Girls water polo: Maine South rolls to title at Palatine
After starting off the Palatine Pirate Invitational with a 10-5 victory over Prospect on Thursday, the Maine South girls water polo team put the finishing touches on a great weekend Saturday at the eight-team tournament.
The Hawks (13-6) posted a 13-11 victory over the host Pirates before an 11-3 victory over Neuqua Valley set the stage for a championship showdown against archrival Maine West (12-3).
And it was all Maine South from the outset as it built a 4-0 lead at halftime before rolling to a 9-1 victory over the Warriors (3-1 in tourney) for the team title.
Senior Josefina McCauley scored the first of her 4 goals for an early 1-0 lead before senior teammate Kristyna Kubisova scored the first of her 4 goals for a 2-0 lead after one quarter.
Goals by McCauley and Kubisova made the score 4-0 at halftime before McCauley scored just 11 seconds into the third quarter for a 5-0 advantage. Kubisova lofted her fourth goal of the game into the left corner of the net for a commanding 6-0 lead with three minutes left in the period.
"After spring break we've kind of lit it up, and we've been beating some really good teams," said McCauley.
"We lay out what we've got to focus on and then we work all together," added Kubisova.
Maine West's Lauren Capper scored on a penalty shot with 1:48 left in the third quarter to break up the shutout. But that was the only goal that Hawks goalkeeper Maria Korovilas would allow.
"She's a tremendous goalie, she's a junior, and she definitely got MVP this weekend because she played very well," said Maine South coach Kristie Przekota. "Defensively we're very strong, but we still need to work on our offense a little bit."
Kubisova scored early in the fourth quarter for a 7-1 lead before teammate Sophia Wandel swam right in on the Maine West goalie for an 8-1 lead. Kubisova's fourth goal closed out the scoring with 3:56 to play.
"Credit goes to Maine South, they played a good game," said Maine West coach Andrew Schneider, whose team beat Lincoln-Way East 4-3, and St. Charles co-op 9-3 on Saturday. "Falling behind hurt us, they kept on the attack, and this was our third game today so fatigue set in."
Tied at 5-5 In the third-place game, Lincoln-Way East outscored Prospect (10-6) 4-2 in the fourth quarter to come away with a 9-7 victory. Senior Sasha Martschenko scored 3 goals for the Knights.
"They (Lincoln-Way East) got us in foul trouble, and we had three girls foul out," said Prospect coach Dick Mortensen. "Alexia Corbu missed all three games today due to a finger injury, and when you take a starter out it takes awhile to get back the cohesiveness with the other five players."
St. Charles co-op (6-11) beat Neuqua Valley (3-7) 8-6 in the fifth-place game. Gianna Messina had 3 goals to lead St. Charles while teammate Ari Barone added 2 goals.
"We're a fairly young team, we're only graduating five seniors and the rest of these kids are returning," said St. Charles coach George Mitchell, whose team beat Conant 5-4 on Saturday. "They're doing a nice job. Messina is a standout player, and we're getting ready for the stretch run to sectionals."
Neuqua Valley also lost to Prospect 6-1 and Maine South 11-3 on Saturday.
"She (senior Phoebe Puacz) probably had about 10 goals all throughout this tournament," said Neuqua Valley coach Lewis Kasten. "We're missing three key players (Samira Nedgar, Ava Wallin, and Ella Herrera) due to injury, and we're down another player for a college visit so we were down four players."
Conant (10-13) defeated Palatine (2-11) 14-4 for seventh place after falling to LWE 9-6 and losing a tough 5-4 battle against St. Charles co-op.