FEATURE ARTICLE

Conference Tournament Previews

By Aaron Brown

With the regular season coming to an end, it's time to take an in-depth look at the conference tourneys, championship games, and other important matchups that get started on  Wednesday and run until Saturday night....

BOYS WATER POLO

CPS Tournament - Curie will put its' perfect CPS record to the test beginning on Wednesday when the opening round of the Chicago Public League tournament gets underway at Young's home pool. Young is the greatest threat to the Condors' title hopes, while the likes of Von Steuben, Lane and a handful of others would like nothing better than to pull off an upset to win the City title; the championship game will be played at 5:30pm on Saturday at UIC.

CSL Tournament - With eight teams participating, the Central Suburban League will use a bracket format to determine the conference champion in 2010. The opening round games take place on Friday night, with Glenbrook North coming in as the top seed and New Trier, Glenbrook South, Evanston, and others chasing the Spartans after they finished with a 6-1 conference mark. The competition should be tight, as the top three seeds all finished with 6-1 records, as GBN beat New Trier but lost to GBS, while New Trier beat GBS in the regular season. The semifinals take place at 11:00am and 12:00pm on Saturday and culminates with the title game at 3:00pm.

MSL Championship - Palatine went 16-0 against teams from the Mid-Suburban League, so thy will play the role of the favorite when they take on Buffalo Grove on Wednesday in the MSL title game. The Bison bring went 9-1 in the MSL East, holding off both Prospect and Wheeling to claim the division.

MCAC Tournament - The Catholic League Tournament gets started with a play-in game between DeLaSalle and Mt Carmel at 3:30pm on Thursday at Fenwick and wraps up with the tournament final on Saturday at 3:30pm. Brother Rice comes in as the top-seed after beating Fenwick earlier this season, but the Friars have been on a roll lately, earning two wins over Oak Park and Naperville Central in the past two weeks. St Ignatius, Loyola, St Patrick, and St Viator will also look to make some noise in the opening rounds as they gear up for the postseason.

WSC Tournament - York serves as host for the annual West Surburban Conference Tournament that gets started on Thursday afternoon in Elmhurst. The top two seeds earn first-round byes, so Oak Park and Lyons await the winners of the first-round games between Hinsdale Central-Morton and York-Hinsdale South. The semifinal games will be played on Friday night and the title game takes place on Saturday at 11:00am.

GIRLS WATER POLO

CPS Tournament - Young comes into the Public League Tournament as the heavy favorite after finishing the regular season with a perfect conference mark. They'll have to fend off the challenges of teams like Lane, Payton, Lincoln Park, Curie and others in order to claim the CPS tournament title on Saturday afternoon.

CSL Tournament - The Central Suburban League will use a round-robin format to decide their title, as nine teams will try to work their way towards a conference title in 2010. The games get underway on Friday with the teams broken into three divisions, with Evanston, New Trier, and Glenbrook North coming in as the top three seeds.

MSL Championship - Fremd was perfect in conference play in 2010, but they'll need one more solid performance if they hope to beat a tough Wheeling squad in the MSL title game on Thursday. The Wildcats finished 9-1 in the East, tying with Prospect, but advanced to the championship game by earning the tiebreaker over their rivals.

MCAC Tournament - The Catholic League gets their event started on Friday night with three opening round games between Loyola-St Viator, McAuley-Resurrection, and Fenwick-Marian. St Ignatius earned the top seed and a first-round bye, so they'll await the winner of the Loyola-Viator game in the first semifinal and the winners of the second and third opening round games will meet in the second semifinal. The title game will be played on Saturday at Fenwick at 4:30pm.

WSC Tournament - The West Suburban Conference teams meet up on Saturday at Lyons for a six-team event that uses a bracket format. The host Lions and York have first-round byes, while the other four teams will play opening round games on Saturday morning. The top two seeds will play the first-round winners in semifinal games in the early afternoon on Saturday, with the title game taking place soon after in LaGrange.

OTHER TOURNAMENTS

Vernon Hills Tournament - #5 Latin enters the Vernon Hills Tournament (boys) as favorites, but they'll have to deal with challenges from Lincoln-Way East, Lincoln-Way North, Conant, Libertyville, and the host Cougars.

Mundelein Tournament - The Mustangs play host to BG, Latin, and Prospect in what should be a highly-competitive six-game girls' event in Mundelein.

Stevenson Tournament - The Patriots' host their annual Co-Ed tournament on Saturday, featuring the boys and girls teams from Lincoln-Way Central, Naperville Central, and Neuqua Valley.