The Libertyville girls water polo team is making a name for themselves early into the 2023 season, now sporting a 2-1 record following a 13-0 win over the Elk Grove Grenadiers.

Starting off with a record of 0-1, the team faced adversity to work harder and smarter. On March 9, 2023, the girls were tasked with their second home game, this time against Elk Grove. Coming off of a 10-1 win over the Highland Park Giants on March 8, 2023, the Libertyville girls water polo team had evened out their season record to 1-1, their first-game loss to the Hersey Huskies no longer weighing on the team. By the time the opposing Grenadiers arrived at the pool, the Wildcats were ready to play.

When the first whistle blew, junior Brooke McKibben (4), who scored two goals in the game against Highland Park the day before, made quick work of securing the ball for her team after winning the swim-off. The ball ended up in the hands of sophomore Payton Howard (8) who scored the first goal of the game for the Wildcats.

Much like the previous day’s game against Highland Park, this first goal set the pace for a high-scoring game in favor of the Wildcats. Multiple goals were scored by six different athletes in the first quarter alone, including a grand total of three for Howard.

Howard, in her second year of playing water polo, after spending her freshman year on both JV and varsity, attributed much of her success to “getting around people in the water, setting up on defense and offense and getting shots.”

The bulk of the team’s scoring came from the first quarter alone, with eight of their thirteen goals scored in this part of the game.

Two players who also play on JV, sophomore Iliana Causemaker (16) and junior Amelia Scanio (11), made the game unique by joining in the second quarter, each contributing a goal to the team’s effort.

Causemaker, who has been playing for two years, said she likes playing on varsity “because I got to experience a new level of playing and it was different than playing JV. It was a different experience.”

With superior offense and a teamwide lockdown on defense, the Wildcats continued pulling away from the Grenadiers, and even those who didn’t contribute goals contributed to the team’s success, such as senior Emily Fink (5) who had two steals. Still, Elk Grove senior and goalie Nicole Cetnar (1) ultimately kept composure in the goal, and while, after the third quarter, the Grenadiers still didn’t get any goals, neither did the Wildcats. By the time the final horn sounded, the Wildcats had achieved a shut-out win of 13-0 over their Elk Grove rivals.

“I think what I saw from our team today mostly was just their willingness to work together and to respond to what our coaches were asking them to do and try some new things so that we could get multiple players to score and maintain good sportsmanship,” said Coach Madeline Bollinger.

Bollinger, in addition to serving as the team’s assistant coach, is a school record-holding goalie for her own water polo career, which spanned from 2013-2017.

“I think these last couple of games have given some of our newer players, younger players, a little bit more confidence in their game to see that they can contribute to our scoring and to our team going forward into some tougher games,” said Bollinger.

The Wildcats will play again on March 13, 2023, this time in an away game against the Schaumburg Saxons. Their next home game will be against the Prospect Knights as part of a tournament on March 18, 2023.