Sectional Semifinals - Blogging With My Eyes Half Closed

Ok maybe more later...

9:43pm Fremd cruised to a 15-8 win over Rolling Meadows - they meet Barrington tomorrow. Final score not posted...Lincoln-Way East vs Andrew...

9:25pm Latin pulls out a 9-8 victory over Evanston to advance to face St Ignatius tomorrow afternoon. Sandburg is officially in after beating Stagg 11-8.

9:10pm Loyola and New Trier both advanced at the GBN Sectional. Latin and Evanston are locked in a tight battle that will come down to the final few minutes at UIC.

8:54pm #3 seed Oak Park defeats #2 seed York 13-6 to advance to the sectional final against Fenwick tomorrow afternoon. Neuqua Valley wraps up a win over Hinsdale South, while Mundelein does the same over Libertyville.

8:44pm Latin leads Evanston 6-5 at halftime in one of the best games of the night!

8:37pm In the 2-3 matchups going on now, New Trier does battle with St Viator, Latin-Evanston should be very tight all the way through (overtime in their regular season game), York-Oak Park could go either way as they split their games this year, LWE-Andrew and Meadows-Fremd could go either way, while Stagg and Libertyville look to pull upsets over Sandburg and Mundelein, respectively.

8:34pm Come on....STILL waiting for the Loyola/P-W update...the other 7 girls scores are in with all the top seeds advancing; Barrington was the latest with a 17-8 win over Conant.

8:17pm Last batch of games for the evening. I wish I had some master scheme to get to every Sectional final tomorrow, but everything is all happening at once so...it renders my usual Sectional Road Map useless this year (if you even remember what I am talking about). I may have to break that thing out again...in the past years, the sectional finals were staggered so I ended up going to four places on the final Saturday to see different teams advance to state, preceded by my going to the other 4 sites in the previous 2-3 days for the quarterfinals and semifinals. And I was tired and I drew a map in Paint while I was driving and it didn't end up looking so great, but it was funny.

8:00pm As expected, the top seeds are advancing, as Fenwick, McAuley, Ignatius, Stevenson, Naperville Central, and Lincoln-Way Central are into the sectional finals. Can Loyola and Barrington also get there???

7:24pm The early reportshave McAuley up on Lyons 6-2 and Naperville Central ahead of Hinsdale Central at the half 8-2. Other games with question marks...Loyola and Prospect/Wheeling have not faced each other this year, so there is upset potential there...can Conant carry their overtime win and the momentum over to tonight's game with Barrington...the other games going on include Fenwick-RB, Ignatius-Young, and Stevenson-Lake Forest.

7:09pm And........EVANSTON!!! Tim Silkaitis scored 4 goals to help the Wildkits advanced with a 10-9 win over New Trier. Girls games are all getting in gear, plus the one remaining boys game between Lincoln-Way East and Andrew is also underway.

7:07pm Lincoln-Way Central holds off Lockport 14-11. Waiting.......New Trier vs Evanston....waiting.....waiting....waiting...

7:00pm As a few of the girls games get underway, we now learn that Fremd has shocked Conant 7-6 to advance to the Palatine Sectional final. The final two outcomes we are waiting to hear about are the Evanston-NT game and Lockport-LWC.

6:45pm Late game winners so far: Stevenson, Sandburg, Naperville Central, St Patrick, and St Ignatius. In the final minutes, Conant-Fremd and New Trier-Evanston are coming down to the wire.

6:36pm Sandburg is about to eliminate Brother Rice...in the closing seconds, the Eagles lead it 8-5.

6:31pm A lot of interesting things going on. #3 seeds with late leads include Fremd (4-3 over Conant) and Evanston (8-6 over New Trier). Naperville Central up 10-6 on North late in the third.

6:16pm Naperville North creeps back into the game late in the second half with Naperville Central, as the Huskies trail 7-4.

5:59pm The second wave of games are all underway, as we await some of the official scores from the earlier games. Naperville Central has jumped out to a 4-0 lead over Naperville North in the first three minutes of their game. Some of the other great matchups include Sandburg vs Brother Rice, New Trier vs Evanston, to name a few...

5:44pm Palatine advances with a 20-8 win, while Lincoln-Way Central becomes the first girls team to advance to the finals with a hard-fought 9-5 win over Homewood-Flossmoor.

5:38pm Waubonsie Valley has pulled away and holds a late 11-8 lead over Neuqua Valley.

5:31pm Mundelein beats Lake Forest 13-2 to advance to the finals. They face the winner of the Stevenson/Libertyville game up next.

5:25pm WV scores the only goal of the third quarter to tie the game with Neuqua. Elsewhere, Lyons clinches the first finals spot with a 10-3 win over St Rita...Peter Cosentino led a 10-1 run for Lyons with 5 goals.

5:14pm Lyons has pulled away and taken control of their game with St Rita to lead 8-3 after three periods. The Lions have gone on an 8-1 run after trailing 2-0 early on.

5:08pm Interesting...Neuqua Valley scored right before the half and leads Waubonsie Valley and 7-6 at the half. Palatine also has a comfortable lead over Buffalo Grove; Fenwick, Mundelein, and Latin also look strong and lead at the break...no word from the Loyola-GBS game yet.

4:52pm Lyons bounces back to score 3 straight goals in the second quarter for a 3-2 halftime lead.

4:45pm Fenwick is in control early against York; same goes for Mundelein against Lake Forest.

4:41pm Woah...St Rita jumps out to a 2-0 lead on #1 seed Lyons at the Sandburg sectional after one period.

4:30pm The games are underway and in the first quarter. The lone girls game is a good one between #1 seed Lincoln-Way Central and #4 seed Homewood-Flossmoor. H-F won the latest meeting between the two teams at the end of the regular season. Meanwhile, defending state champ Fenwick is in action as we speak, as are all of the boys' #1 seeds other than Lincoln-Way East, who plays Andrew at 7:00pm this evening. Score updates soon...

4:08pm The sectional semifinals get underway in about 20 minutes, and I'm trying to keep my eyes open after a long day of work and no sleep with a couple cans of Mountain Dew Amp. Seven boys games and one girls game kick things off at 4:30pm, and we'll be live the rest of the night and well into tomorrow morning with some tailgating before the Sectional Finals tomorrow at noon.

Just think...in less than 24 hours there will be 16 teams heading to state and before things get started tonight 64 teams still have a chance.