The Glenbrook North girls water polo team enters sectional week with a 22-2 record and having already distinguished itself as the best team in program history.
There are multiple reasons for the Spartans’ success. For one, their core features a five-person senior group — Lindsay Fraser, Melaney Van Spankeren, Lauren Sulkowski and sisters Colleen Doolan and Patricia Doolan — that has been together on varsity for three years.
“Our sophomore year on varsity, we were not good,” said Fraser, the team’s best offensive player. “We were just trying to learn, figure out the ropes because we were a really young team. We’ve all played together for three years now, so this is kind of like our year to put everything we’ve learned — all of our experience — together and come up with something [special].”
The Spartans finished 4-0 in the Central Suburban North to win the program’s first conference title. They finished third at the CSL tournament with a 12-7 victory over Maine West on Saturday, May 9, in Glenview.
Glenbrook North fell behind the Warriors 2-0 in the first quarter. Its offense went scoreless for the game’s first six minutes, but Glenbrook North didn’t panic.
The team’s experience helped it stay calm, and so too did the fact that two of Glenbrook North’s strengths in the pool are its speed and endurance.
“In the first quarter, we try to swim a lot and try to tire the other team out,” Fraser said. “Usually, that works for us because we’re all pretty decent swimmers. We try to keep going, get the other team tired and once we wear them down a little bit, we try to start getting in and scoring a lot.”
That’s what happened against Maine West. The Doolan sisters scored a goal apiece in the final minute of the first quarter, and then Glenbrook North outscored the Warriors 5-1 in the second. The Spartans led 7-4 at halftime and Maine West never threatened to come back in the second half.
Glenbrook North has had an advantage in speed and endurance over most of the teams it’s played this season, Fraser said, but Evanston was an exception. Both of the Spartans’ losses were to the Wildkits, including a 5-3 defeat in the CSL Tournament semifinals on Friday, May 8.
Glenbrook North and Evanston are in different sectionals, however. The Spartans are seeded second in the Glenbrook North Sectional. They defeated top-seeded New Trier 7-6 in their first game of the season.
“We were,” junior Patricia Grod said, when asked if the Spartans were relieved that Evanston isn’t in their sectional.
“Our chances [to make it to state] are definitely better than last year,” she added. “We’re all very excited.”
Glenbrook North will play either seventh-seeded Maine East or 10th-seeded Resurrection in its Glenbrook North Sectional quarterfinal, which is scheduled to begin at 7 p.m. Wednesday, May 13.
Game notes
* Fraser, Colleen Doolan and Patricia Doolan all finished with three goals against Maine West.
* Sulkowski, Grod and Van Spankeren each scored one goal.
Van Dril is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.
Twitter: @VanDrilSports
