Homewood-Flossmoor, Sandburg each advance

Updated: May 13, 2011 10:15PM

Homewood-Flossmoor vs. Sandburg Part 3 is a go.

The top two seeds in the Lincoln-Way North boys water polo sectional punched their tickets to Saturday’s championship game, setting up a rubber match between the SouthWest Suburban Blue rivals who split a pair of regular season games.

H-F pulled away from a pesky Lincoln-Way East squad in the second half Friday for an 11-4 win while Sandburg rolled to a 17-6 victory over Lockport.

In the opener, the underdog Griffins were within 5-4 at halftime, but H-F pitched a second-half shutout.

“Our kids didn’t get down on themselves,” H-F coach Tim Caldwell said. “I bark at them a bit sometimes, but they know it’s for a reason. They picked it up in the second half and (goalie Jake Bodnar) came up big.”

Shay Banton and Caleb Peterson led the top-seeded Vikings (23-6-2) with three goals each and Bodnar made 11 saves.

Tim Zoellick scored twice and Tom Vander Velde stopped 13 shots for East (9-20).

H-F got scoring from five different players in the second half as it took charge. Kevin Kuchta (3 assists) and Henry Weeks came up with big goals on back-to-back possessions to up the lead to 8-4 after three.

“We had to play H-F water polo in the second half,” Banton said. “We knew what we were doing wrong. It was good to have a lot of guys score, because we’re a team.”

East coach Mike Cremieux saw his team play some of its best water polo at sectionals.

“That first half was the best half I’ve seen one of my teams play,” he said. “H-F is very good. They won this; we didn’t lose it.”

Sandburg (27-5) also benefited from balanced offense and got big contributions from three players outside its top two scorers.

Anthony Bonnar, Cody Corridino and Balys Gintautas scored four times each to pace the Eagles. Erik Niemeier added three goals and Tony Rogina made 14 saves.

David Hir (4 goals) and Jeff Johnson (2 goals) scored for Lockport (19-11).

Corridino scored three first-half goals as Sandburg jumped to an 8-2 lead.

“Everyone’s trying to step up because it’s do or die,” Corridino said. “This is too much fun to stop. It’s going to a great game with H-F. We’re really excited.”

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