Boys Water Polo: New Trier pulls away from Niles West with second-half surge

Updated: April 19, 2012 10:26PM

Coming out of halftime in a tie game with Niles West, New Trier opened the third quarter of Thursday’s match by scoring three goals in less than three minutes en route to an 18-8 victory.

The Trevians’ scoring binge prompted Niles West coach John Przekota to call a timeout. The two-minute break provided New Trier coach David Goodspeed to issue a simple, direct message to his team.

He called timeout and when we talked to them, we said ‘He’s calling timeout because his team’s giving up,’” Goodspeed said. “I’m like ‘You’ve got to get in there and score the next goal. You’ll break their backs and they’re going to give up altogether.’ And they did.”

New Trier’s Jordan Palmer, who scored a game-high seven goals, answered with a goal to give New Trier a 10-6 advantage. The worn-out Wolves (13-8) would only score twice more in the second half, walking away disappointed with the end result but pleased with how they played the Trevians (12-4-1) to a 6-6 draw in the first half.

“I think the main factor that caused them to score so many points in the second half was that they’re just too (dang) fast at swimming,” said Niles West’s Max Romanelli, who scored four goals. “I know their swimming program is one of the best in the nation and we just got tired out. I think that was the main reason; they were just countering us at every point.”

New Trier’s Joey Ryan scored four goals in the match. Jason Bartha chipped in with three goals for the Trevians.

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