Neuqua Valley overpowers Saints

Updated: May 12, 2011 11:06PM

Neuqua Valley junior Kevin Patterson had the golden touch Thursday night as his No. 2 seed boys water polo team faced No. 7 St. Charles East in a quarterfinal of the Neuqua Valley Sectional.

Actually, it appeared no Wildcats’ player could miss as Patterson scored five goals in the first half and Neuqua rolled out to an 18-0 lead before the Saints scored their first goal with 5:11 left in the third quarter.

The Wildcats finished as a 24-6 winner, moving on to face Naperville North in a semifinal at 8:15 tonight.

“He’s a junior that’s grown a lot from last year to this year,” Neuqua coach Michael Bathan said about Patterson. “He’s definitely one of our leaders.”

Neuqua (19-6-1) racked up 12 man advantages, two double man-ups and two penalty shots, but didn’t need the extra help with a porous Saints defense allowing numerous open shot attempts on the counter and from a set defense as they rolled out to a huge lead.

“They had a lot of speed and sped past us,” Saints coach Sean Markowic said. “My guys kind of had that deer in the headlights look after the first couple goals. It kind of snowballed.”

St. Charles East did score four goals in the third period, which won’t make Bathan happy, but the quick start did.

“Our goal was to try to shut them out,” Bathan said. “We were working on our defense, that was our main thing. To keep up with Naperville Central we need to keep the score low. Our goal was to keep them under two, but we tried to get everyone in there.”

Shaun Seuschek scored three goals to lead St. Charles East (12-10).

For Neuqua, Austin Torrey, David Lesniak and A.J. Quebbeman had four goals each, while Alex Thoele, Will Russell and Robert Vechiola each had two as the Wildcats will now face off with the Huskies for the third time this year.

“These guys are good,” Bathan said about North. “They’ve won one, we’ve won one. Kind of a rubber match. Should be good.”

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