THE ILLPOLO BLOG

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Sectionals Update (5.13.07)

Updated 5.13.07 - 3:30am

After a long weekend of water polo, it's time to take a step back and review what just happened and what to expect in the next week as the state tournament approaches:

Congratulations to Sandburg head coach Jim Caliendo, who won his 500th career game on Friday night at the Lincoln-Way Sectional (a 5-3 victory over rival Homewood-Flossmoor to help the Eagles advance to the sectional finals).
Two teams will be making their first appearance at state this year on the boys' side; St Ignatius and Conant.
The boys' state tournament features only three teams that qualified last year - Fenwick, Loyola, and Lincoln-Way East. Brother Rice returns to state after missing out in 2006, while Stevenson had not qualified for two years and Naperville North has not been to state since the 2003 season.
Six of the eight girls' qualifiers played at state in 2006; the only two teams that did not play at state last year were Homewood-Flossmoor (last state appearance was in 2005) and Neuqua Valley (last state appearance was in 2003).
All-Sectional Teams will hopefully be received and posted in the next few days. Each sectional must calculate the votes and determine the order of players, then send them to both Illinois Water Polo and Illpolo.com. We merely post the results that are sent to us, and usually post them within minutes of receiving them...point being that if you don't see it on the site, we probably don't have the results yet. When they are sent and posted, you CAN send any spelling corrections to the site and we will try to get the updated information to the water polo organization for awards/certificate accuracy...again, we just post what we receive, so most, if not all, spelling mistakes are not typos on our part.
We will likely post two separate end-of-the-year teams on the site; one being the usual All-Illpolo Teams (which include a lot more players than the All-State Teams) and the other being our unofficial "ballot" if we had one for the All-State voting that takes place on Monday, May 21. There is a major difference between the way Illpolo.com's All-Illpolo Teams are done compared to All-State...All-Illpolo Teams and selections are the opinions of the site; it's hard to argue against someone's opinion, but we usually receive a handful of e-mails criticizing our personal opinions anyways.
Thank you to all coaches, parents, players, and others for sending updated information for sectional games. Especially those who take the time to send from their Blackberry's or other devices immediately following games (in some cases, during the games). Your efforts help make the site as updated as possible and ensure that the water polo fans get the best and most updated information that most other sports do not have.
For coaches who read the blog, feel free to send in nominations for some of the various postseason awards...All-Defense, All-Lefty, JV Ballers, etc. We will probably post something on the main page asking for nominations, but for now, please send any information to illpolo2007@yahoo.com
Not sure if this will be the last year of Illpolo.com or not - it has gotten much more difficult to maintain the site, travel to games, maintain the cost of the site, and spend every minute of free time updating the site with a full-time job and other pursuits. More on this later, but just as a thought, any donations or assistance (or a pat on the back) are greatly appreciated and go a long way towards helping keep the site running.

See the Sectional Center for more information.

Tuesday Update (5.8.07)

Updated 5.08.07 - 9:00pm

GBN SECTIONAL (BOYS)

Prospect defeated Maine East 17-7 on Tuesday night to advance in the Glenbrook North Sectional. Sean Hansen and Joe Stelnick each scored 4 goals to lead the Knights to the win.

UIC SECTIONAL (BOYS)

JULIAN 15 RICHARDS 10

Monday Update (5.7.07)

Updated 5.07.07 - 11:00pm

ST VIATOR 19 PROSPECT 6 (BOYS)

Mike Barry recorded 7 goals, Ryan Torii added 5 scores, and goalie Robbie Vavrik stopped 14 shots as St Viator won the last game of the regular season over Prospect 19-6 on Monday night.

UIC SECTIONAL (BOYS)

NORTHSIDE 5 KENWOOD 0

As the result of a forfeit, Northside advanced in Monday's only scheduled sectional competition. Northside, the eighth seed in the UIC Sectional, will advance to take on host and top-seeded St Ignatius on Thursday night at 4:30pm.