Girls Water Polo: Young edges Lane in double OT for city title

Updated: May 5, 2012 9:37PM

Young senior Susana Zizumbo had visions of what happened to her and her teammates in the 2010 Chicago Public League finals dancing through her head Saturday.

On that day, the top-seeded Dolphins were upset by rival Lane for the city crown. Saturday, the two teams faced off again, and after recovering from a 4-0 deficit in the first quarter to force overtime, Zizumbo had the ball in her hands to do something about it.

With 1:01 left in the second overtime, Zizumbo scored to give the Dolphins the lead and Emily Asai added one more for good measure in Young’s 7-5 win over Lane.

“I knew I had to make the shot,” Zizumbo said. “I didn’t want to lose to them again. Yeah, we fell behind 4-0, but we had nothing to lose, so that’s why I just kept my hopes up and kept trying.”

Lane (17-10) came out on fire in the first quarter with Cassidy O’Connell scoring the second of her two goals in the period with 1:48 left to open a seemingly commanding 4-0 lead. But Young (17-7-1) slammed the door shut with its defense and star goalie Nya Wilkins.

Lane scored only one more game the rest of the match, a span of 28:12, which allowed the Dolphins time to come back.

“For me as a goalie, I was really nervous because I didn’t want history to repeat itself again,” Wilkins said. “Once I shook off the nerves, I was like, ‘You know what, we’re winning this game.’ ’’

Susan Engmann and Asai scored in the third to cut the lead to 4-3. Then with the score at 5-3, Zizumbo scored once and Audrey Anderson followed with a goal with four seconds left in regulation to force overtime.

“Honestly, I had complete confidence in them,” Young coach Aarron Fleischhacker said. “In the first quarter, it was just a bunch of nerves out there. I had complete confidence that we were going to come back and win that game. I knew we were going to do it.”

Young also played with a chip on its shoulder after the sectional pairings were announced. Despite beating Lane and Latin in the regular season, the Dolphins were seeded fourth in the St. Ignatius Sectional, behind both of those teams. Now, they have momentum going into their opening game against Northside Thursday.

“I think it shows people that, so what, we’re the fourth seed in sectionals, clearly we deserved the No. 2 spot, but even if we don’t have it, we’re going to fight through it,” Zizumbo said.

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