Water polo: April 2008 Archives

Naperville Central senior Kara Wilson, the school's all-time goal scorer, told The Heat Index on Tuesday night that she will not play water polo when she goes to college next year.

"I decided not to pursue that," Wilson said after scoring four goals in an 8-5 loss to defending state champion Mother McAuley.

Wilson will play her final home match on Wednesday night against St. Charles East, her final regular season road match on Thursday at Sandburg and her final tournament on Saturday at the Stevenson Co-ed.

After that, Kara Wilson said she hopes her water polo career doesn't end like last season -- at the Neuqua Valley Sectional. She also said she is aware the clock is ticking.

"Yeah definitely," Wilson said. "I mean, after this year, I'm done. So it's kind of sad. So hopefully we'll end on a good note. I mean, last year was a tough way to end. My freshman and sophomore year it was great to go to state, so it'd be great if we could rally and just play really well at sectionals."

The Waubonsie Valley and Naperville North girls water polo teams are on deck for some serious competition this weekend at the Maroon and Gold Tournament.

Including the No. 12 Warriors, St. Ignatius has invited five teams ranked in the Illpolo.com media poll, including No. 5 Lyons Township (17-2), No. 8 Loyola (12-9), No. 9 Homewood-Flossmoor (9-6-1) and No. 10 New Trier (14-4-2). And since the tournament hosts are ranked third, that means this four-match tournament at UIC is a beast with six of the eight teams in the top 12.

North (8-15) is in the Maroon Bracket with Lyons, New Trier and St. Ignatius.
Waubonsie (13-7) is in the Gold Bracket with H-F, Loyola and Marian.

Illpolo.com posted an Excel file with the brackets for the boys and girls water polo state tournaments. The IHSA will officially release the pairings on Friday.

Here are the first-round matchups (with seeds) for the Neuqua Valley Sectionals. In the second round, the winner of the 1 vs. 8 game plays the winner of the 4 vs. 5 game. The winner of the 3 vs. 6 game plays the winner of the 2 vs. 7 games.

Boys

Naperville Central (1) vs. St. Charles East (8)

Waubonsie Valley (4) vs. Hinsdale Central (5)

Naperville North (3) vs. Hinsdale South (6)

Neuqua Valley (2) vs. St. Charles North (7)

Girls

Naperville Central (1) vs. St. Charles East (8)

Naperville North (5) vs. Hinsdale Central (4)

Waubonsie Valley (3) vs. Hinsdale South (6)

Neuqua Valley (2) vs. St. Charles North (7)

The Heat Index has learned that Naperville Central was selected on Wednesday night as the top seed for the Neuqua Valley boys water polo sectional.

Neuqua Valley is the second seed, Naperville North is third and Waubonsie Valley is fourth. The bottom four are Hinsdale Central, Hinsdale South, St. Charles North and St. Charles East.

The IHSA will officially announce the seeds on Thursday on its website. The pairings will be announced on Friday.

UPDATE: Illpolo.com has posted the seeds for the Neuqua Valley girls water polo sectional, and Naperville Central is the top seed. Neuqua, which beat Central on Monday night, is No. 2. Waubosnie Valley is No. 3, Hinsdale Central is No. 4, Naperville North is No. 5, Hinsdale South is No. 6, St. Charles North is No. 7 and St. Charles East is No. 8.

After winning tournaments on Saturday, the Neuqua Valley and Naperville Central boys water polo teams will square off Monday night in the second top-10 matchup in a row for both the No. 10 Wildcats and the No. 2 Redhawks.

The Wildcats (12-4) went 4-0 at the Sandburg tournament, including a 9-8 win over No. 4 Sandburg in the title game.

The Redhawks (15-2) won their own tournament for the ninth time in 11 years, knocking off both No. 9 Mundelein and archrival and then-No. 2 Naperville North on Saturday.

North (18-5) didn't fall far in the illpolo.com media poll, switching place with Central at No. 3.

Naperville North boys coach Kurt Johns told The Heat Index that the Huskies won their pool on Friday night in the 11th annual Best of the West water polo tournament.

Ranked second in the current media poll at illpolo.com, North swept its pool with a 10-1 win over Glenbrook North and a 12-4 win over Lake Forest. No. 3 Central won its pool with a 12-3 win over Hinsdale Central and a 8-7 win over No. 12 Glenbrook South.

Ninth-ranked Mundelein -- the champion at the Lake County tournament -- won the other pool on Friday and will face Central (12-2) at 9:40 a.m. on Saturday. The Huskies (16-4) play Mundelein at 12:40 p.m. and the cross-town rivals play for the third time this season at 2:40 p.m. in the final match of the championship pool.

Central won the first match 10-9 with a comeback that secured the title at the Naperville Quad on March 8. The Huskies won the second match, beating the Redhawks 8-7 in pool play at Fenwick's Dan Lynch Tournament on March 14.

At the Sandburg tournament, No. 10 Neuqua Valley beat Lane 14-8 on Friday night.

The Waubonsie Valley girls water polo team won the third-place game at the St. Charles North tournament on Saturday, according to theillpoloblog.

The Warriors, which are ranked 14th in the new illpolo.com media poll, went 2-1 at St. Charles North, including a 12-9 win over Northside in the consolation final. Bailey Gucinski erupted for eight goals in that win.

Waubonsie goalie Megan McWhirter got some additional bragging rights with the shut out she posted against Naperville North and Huskies coach/her dad Andy McWhirter.

For the boys poll, go here. North and Naperville Central are still ranked second and third, respectively.

In the wake of Thursday's match with Oak Park-River Forest getting scratched because the Oak Park bus was in an accident with "a drunk driver,"the Neuqua Valley girls water polo team has three home matches remaining on the schedule, and all three will be important benchmarks for the Wildcats.

Before 14th-ranked Neuqua plays the first of the Big 3, the Wildcats have two road matches against ranked teams: at No. 3 St. Ignatius on Monday and at No. 25 Naperville North on Tuesday. Then the fun begins.