The Naperville North Girls Varsity Water Polo team beat the York Dukes on Saturday, May 24th, to successfully take home the 3rd place trophy for head coach Andy Mcwhirter’s final game as the Huskies head coach.
The Huskies (28-7-1) beat the Dukes (21-6) with a final score of 12-9.
The Huskies started off strong with a goal from sophomore Natalie Brown (9) with 6:11 left in the first quarter, making the score 1-0. The Huskies continued to play well with multiple blocks from junior goalie Rugie Stackevicius (1) and good defense from the Huskies. Yet, the Dukes fought back and got a backdoor shot with 3:14 left in the quarter which tied the score at 1-1. Fortunately for the Huskies, one of York’s starters was ejected resulting in the Huskies being a man up. The ejected York player may have assumed that possession changed when she came out of the penalty box to grab the ball. This action earned her team a double ejection. This resulted in a five meter for the Huskies, where senior Peyton Schrier (15) scored off of a skip shot, giving the Huskies back the lead at 2-1. With renewed momentum, the Huskies scored again near the end of the first quarter to get the score up to 3-1. Sadly, the Dukes came back with a vengeance and scored within the first 30 seconds of the second quarter to get the score to 3-2. The Dukes and Huskies started scoring back to back to get the score up to 5-4 with 3:27 left in the first half. Thankfully, the Huskies broke out of the scoring cycle by scoring 2 goals of their own by Schrier and junior Molly Depies (12) to get a score of 7-4 with 2:21 left in the half. To end the half, sophomore Ava Podkasik (21) got a goal with 56 seconds left to finish the half with a score of 8-4. Schrier detailed the team’s attitude going into their final game.
“Our attitude was to come out strong and secure the win because we knew the game was going to be hard since we had lost and beat them and knew it would be a tossup,” Schrier said.
The second half of the game started out great for the Huskies with Brown winning the swim off and another goal from Podkasik which kept the Huskies in the lead with a new score of 9-4 with 6:30 left in the third quarter. Unfortunately, a little later into the game, junior Cate Czochara (2) got ejected and York scored on the man up which made the score 9-5. The Huskies continued to fight to keep their lead through multiple shots and aggressive defense, but York still managed to get a goal with 2:17 left and change the score to 9-6. Luckily, Stackevicious continued to make crucial saves to finish off the quarter for the Huskies. The fourth quarter had a solid start with another Huskie goal within the first two minutes, which resulted in a score of 10-6. Then another scoring cycle between North and York occurred, ending with a new score of 11-8 with a Huskie goal from sophomore Mia Podkasik (3). The Huskies kept going, shown by Schrier slamming the ball into the goal with 3:02 left to keep the Huskies lead and make the score 12-8. Yet York continued to shoot, getting one last goal with 2:45 left which resulted in the final score of 12-9. Huskies continued to keep the ball away from York. Even when they had possession, Stackevicius blocked all of York’s shots. The game ended with the Huskies officially having won the third-place title. Czochara shared her feelings surrounding the end result of the game.
“I feel great because last year we worked so hard and got 4th place and it’s just so much sweeter to get 3rd,” Czochara said.
Coach Andy Mcwhirter has coached girls water polo for a long time and this past season was his last one as head coach. Coach Mcwhirter reflected on what this team has meant to him.
“Every game has been exciting, it’s nice to see the growth of the team from its beginning 30+ years ago but it is also sad to leave the family and pass it on to somebody else,” Coach McWhirter said.
