Broncos’ Water Polo Hoping to Start Making Waves

Barrington's Water Polo team has spent most of the season so far on the road (eleven of Barrington’s first 12 matches).  It's been month in between victories, and despite being competitive in most of their matches, Barrington’s coach Adam Steffen believes that the team is ready to make their playoff run.

“We’ve been playing even with teams all season but then in the last seconds we drop (the game),” Steffen said after Barrington’s 8-5 win over the Mustangs Thursday, April 7.  “We just can’t seem to get over the hump and against Rolling Meadows we were able to.”

In a rematch against the Mustangs, and Barrington’s last victory (9 - 8 to Meadows), the Broncos seemed to be in control from the onset and found themselves up 7-2 against their MSL conference crossover rival.   

Then things went wrong for Barrington as it appeared that they were destined to find another way to lose again, a fate suffered countless times this season, with the latest happening against Fremd.  During Tuesday’s home meet, the Broncos lead 6-5 with under two minutes to go but would eventually lose 7-6.

The Mustangs, who seemed able to answer Barrington’s early lead by scoring 3 consecutive goals, seemed to be building considerable momentum by pulling the match to 7-5 and looked ready to take the match over.  Meadow’s Sam Schmid led the attack against the Broncos with two goals and was poised to put another in had it not been for a great save by Barrington’s goalie Chris Hoover.

“[Hoover] had an amazing day and a stellar season,” Steffen said of the goal tender’s 13 saves made off of 18 attempts.  “He is always the loudest kid in the pool and today he was intense.”

“Chris is one of the reasons we are staying in games,” Steffen went on to say.  “He is making 15 to 20 blocks a game and that is just unheard of (in boys’ water polo).”

But it wasn’t all defense for the Broncos as Tom West scored three goals and teammate Erik Beightol added two (13 goals scored on the season) as Barrington spread the ball around and had 5 different players score.

“This could have been his best performance in all three years he’s been on (varsity),” Steffen said of West.  “He was on today and had a fantastic game.”

“We have a very spread out team as far as who are leading scorers are, and it almost changes game by game,” Barrington’s coach went on to say of the team’s flexibility he depends heavily on.  “I have 12 guys (of 17) that I can change out without missing a beat; they can all put it in.”

Currently, Barrington’s leading scorers are Alex Seizovic (19) and Sam Howes (15), but unfortunately neither was able to find the back of the net against Rolling Meadows.  But just as Steffen expects, and saw against Rolling Meadows, when a player or two might be off, another set of players step up.

“Someone always seems to produce when someone else is having a bad day,” said Steffen.

Barrington will need to continue to play at the highest level as they will face a daunting task in Lake Forest.  A rematch from the Vernon Hills Invite, the Broncos, who were short-handed prior to spring break, finished fifth in the Cougar Classic and lost to second place finisher Lake Forest.

“[Lake Forest] will be a good gauge to see where we are at,” Steffen said.  “If we can beat them then we might be over the hump.”