For the second year in a row, the girls water polo team has bought gold home to the proud halls of North Penn High School. Over the weekend of Friday October 27th, the Maidens traveled to Cumberland Valley High School in Mechanicsburg Pennsylvania to play in the annual state championship tournament.
In the first round of states, the Maidens beat the host team Cumberland Valley by a score of 11-5 to put them in the winners bracket. In the next match the maidens took on the Governor Mifflin where they beat the Mustangs seven goals to two.
The two wins sent the Maidens into the championship game against cross town rival the Souderton Big Red. After a strong performance by North Penn, the girls were able to beat the Souderton team by a score of 7-3 to take home their fifth state title in seven years.
The Maidens only had three losses all season thanks to strong play and leadership from seniors Jenn Halcovage, Tess O’Neill Brittney Patterson, Aspen Trautz, Karlie Vogt and junior goalie Kat Perkins. North Penn coach Bill Bartle has built arguably the strongest girls high school water polo program in the state after the success shown by the team in their recent years.
“Winning states was defiantly a group effort! In practice the second line challenged the starting line every day, which tremendously helped in the championship game!” Said senior Brittney Patterson on the preparation her team took on their way to states.”It feels wonderful to win back to back State titles. The starting line was all seniors except for our goalie. There was some pressure to win this season since every teams goal is to beat North Penn.”
Senior Jenn Halcovage recognized all of the hard work that the Maidens put into their season, “It feels amazing to win after pre season, morning practices, and long weekends at tournaments. At times, my teammates and I think we’re crazy for spending so much time at practice, but winning the championship reminds us that it’s worth it.”
The Maidens also had the right attitude going into the championship knowing that they would come away victorious, “We did expect to win because as a team we prepare for that tournament. A lot of teams focus on the games before that as important. But we know that none of that matters once we get to states. Anyone could win it, but we knew that we had the talent to do so.” said Jenn Halcovage of her teams approach going into states.
The Maidens successful championship season has bought a lot of attention to the water polo program; a sport that normally flies under the radar here at North Penn. The girls are happy for the attention and are very proud of their accomplishments this season, as senior Brittney Patterson said “To bring home two state titles in a row is something I will always remember and I couldn’t be happier for our team.”
BOYS POLO HOSTS STATES
The North Penn Boys Water Polo team hosted the 2012 Men’s State Water Polo Championships last weekend in the Rick Carroll Natatorium, hoping to win a state title in front of the Knights faithful.
North Penn is a very young team, led by only four seniors; Alex Chasar, David Jordan, Shane Owens and Just Veverka. Comprised of mostly sophomores and juniors the Knights had a very young starting lineup in the championship, losing most of their starters on the state runner up team to the graduating class last year. Based on their record North Penn came into the tournament seeded eighth, but still looked to win a title in their home pool.
Eight teams traveled to Lansdale from all over the state, from as far as North Allegheny, which is just outside of Pittsburgh and about a six hour bus trip, to as close as Souderton, just ten minutes down Allentown Road. The tournament took place from Friday night through Saturday evening. Each team had a seed based on their season record going into the Championship games. The way the layout was set up was that the matches played on Friday night that would then determine the matches that would take place on Saturday morning. Once a team lost, they would be put into the loser’s bracket, eliminating any chance of bringing home a state championship.
North Penn played the last game of four on Friday night where the eighth seeded Knights took on the number one seeded North Allegheny Tigers. Coming in as the under dog, North Penn looked to pull of an upset in game one and attempt to live up to the high standard set by last years team, which took home second place in the State Championships.
North Alleghany came into the first quarter firing on all cylinders, scoring four goals of their own and holding North Penn scoreless in the first seven minutes. During the two minute break, North Penn put a game plan together that enabled them to score the first goal coming into the second period. However the Tigers would not let the Knights completely back in scoring three consecutive goals until Liam Kelly scored for North Penn momentarily stopping the Tiger’s domination. The score going into halftime was 8-2 Knights trailing and looking to make a comeback in the final two periods. North Penn was unable to do so though, being outscored in the second half 8-4, losing to the Tigers with a final of 16-6. The loss moved the Knights into the loser’s bracket and out of contention for a state title.
North Penn went from the last game on the night on Friday to the first one of the day on Saturday. The Knights swam off against the Governor Mifflin Mustangs where North Penn looked to redeem themselves after an overwhelmingly large loss to the North Alleghany Tigers. The Knights gave the Mustangs a goal early but immediately answered with a goal of their own, on a penalty shot made by captain Justin Veverka. North Penn was able to keep it close going into the second quarter, only trailing the Mustangs 3-1. Veverka led the charge in the second period, helping North Penn to immediately score two goals to tie the game up at three. The competitive nature of the game would hold strong going into the half, where both teams found themselves tied at six goals apiece. In the third quarter the Knights took advantage of rare holes in the Mustangs defense and scored two goals, and only allowed Governor Mifflin one goal of their own to take a 8-7 lead. Mustangs came into the fourth quarter racing though, immediately scoring two goals to take a lead for one of the first times against the Knights. Perhaps one of the longest periods of play in the entire tournament between timeouts and penalties, the Knights were not able to hold off the Mustangs and lost their second game of the tournament by a score of 11-7.
Going into the last game 0 for 2 so far in the tournament, the Knights faced off at 4:00 against cross town rival the Souderton Big Red. Fueled by the anger of their first two losses, North Penn came into the game firing on all cylinders, scoring two goals in the first two minutes of the game. However, Souderton would not give the Knights an easy win and tied the game going into the second quarter scoring two goals in the final minutes of play. The game remained tight through the second period with the Knights getting great play from goalie John Krail and players Justin Veverka, Mark Dunigan, Liam Kelly, and Brett Else who helped take a 5-4 lead into the second half. As time dwindled play got more and more intense in the pool, and the cheers in the stands grew as both Souderton and North Penn had a large fan sections. Each team matched one another with two goal in the third period, allowing the Knights to maintain the lead. Appropriate to the pattern of the game, the fourth quarter was absolute insanity as the sound of whistles and chants engulfed the natatorium. North Penn scored in the dwindling seconds of regulation to tie it up at eight, sending the game into overtime.
The way overtime works in water polo is that there are two three minute periods and whoever has the lead after time is out receives the win. If the two teams remain tied after the fact, they go into sudden-death overtime. And that is exactly what happened in the North Penn Souderton game, tied at ten apiece going into sudden death, Souderton scored on a low ball right into the lower right corner of the net to give the Big Red the win by a score of 11-10.
With each game North Penn showed an even higher level of play, but only to be surmounted by each time. Although the Knights lost all three of their games in the state championship tournament, they show a lot of promise in the coming years of the water polo program and overall the festivities were a great success.