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Fenwick convinces Rice that Friars are best in the state
Updated: March 25, 2013 10:23PM
OAK PARK — Fenwick’s boys water polo team set the early tone by knocking off defending state champion Lyons at the Lions’ own tournament Saturday.
The Friars then continued to roll through the Metro Catholic Athletic Conference Monday. They remained unbeaten with an 11-6 win over Brother Rice Monday. Fenwick is 9-0 overall and 4-0 in conference play.
“We were tired,” Fenwick coach Kyle Perry said. “We worked really hard this morning. They came in before the game and we were working out pretty hard. Rice is a good team. I know they were fired up. We just have to find a way to match that intensity. They scored the first goal. We’d like to be on the board first.”
Brother Rice (3-3, 1-1) broke the ice on the first of two goals from Kevin Mayer, but the Friars shook off fatigue and got going from there. They took a 4-1 lead thanks to two goals from Matt Farmer and goals from Danny Farmer and Trevor McLean.
With the score 4-2, Matt Farmer then exploded in the second period to help Fenwick take control of the game. He scored three straight goals to give the Friars a 7-2 lead at the half.
“We came out a little slower than we usually do,” Matt Farmer said. “We swam a ton this morning. We were pretty tired. We didn’t come out as strong as we should. Our energy was low. But we played well in the second quarter.”
The Crusaders hung around, however. Two Dave Jackson goals to start the third quarter cut the lead to 7-4, but that was as close as they would get the rest of the way.
“They played well,” Brother Rice coach Chris Mulcrone said of his squad. “Still have a lot of things that we’re trying to work on. Fenwick is the best team in the state right now. They beat Lyons last week. We hung with them a little bit. We had a bad second quarter there. This team has a tendency to have a bad quarter every game. We just have to get them to play a little more consistent.”
Fenwick’s run of eight straight state titles came to an end to Lyons at sectionals last year, so the Friars were happy to fire the opening shot of the season Saturday, hanging on for a 6-5 win.
“It was nice,” Matt Farmer said. “We came out strong against all of those good teams. All the top teams in the state were here. We haven’t worked on much in practice, just doing a lot of conditioning. It’s nice to know that we can play with these teams without having done that stuff.”
