FRANKFORT – It had been quite awhile since Lincoln-Way East’s boys water polo team had qualified for a trip to the state finals.

But someone who certainly knew that the Griffins had won three straight sectional titles from 2005-07 was their current coach, Zach VanSwol, who played on each of those squads.

In just his second year on the job, VanSwol’s team ended the drought, and also wiped away memories of five straight losing campaigns before this year, when East beat Lincoln-Way Central, 12-8, in Saturday’s Lincoln-Way North Sectional championship.

But the Griffins couldn’t pull off a sweep for the day as the Phoenix girls won their school’s initial sectional title in the sport when they beat East, 16-9, in the final event at North’s pool.

East advances to Thursday’s 7 p.m. IHSA finals at Stevenson in Lincolnshire, where it will meet Saint Ignatius, which won its own sectional 14-6 over Whitney Young.

The Knights (23-10) were hoping to win a second-straight sectional title and hoped to use their defense to avenge an earlier loss to the Griffins (25-5). But East kept Central off the scoreboard in the first quarter to grab an early 5-0 lead and then nearly duplicated that feat in the third quarter to take a 9-5 advantage into the final seven minutes.

“This was four years in the making,” East’s Bryan McNitt said. “We worked our butts off this year and this feels great, it’s one of the happiest moments of my life. It’s amazing how far the program has come. Some of us have played together since we were 9 or 10, so we’re a bunch of brothers. We’re not a team, we’re a family, and we mesh and everything works.

“It’s nice when you can go up on a team right away. But our offense isn’t what won that game, it was our defense. Our goalie, Jake Culver, and Jon Limp in hole were amazing.”

While East was getting first-period goals from Collin O’Donnell (four goals), Andrew Brozovic (two goals), Austin Pearson, McNitt (three goals) and Mason Maze, goalie Jake Culver halted five shots. Central didn’t score until 24 seconds into the second period, when Matt Klock connected, and it still had only that goal going into the last three minutes of the half.

“That start was awesome,” said Culver, who will play for Central next year. “We had a strong defense and that’s why that first quarter turned out real well. That was a great confidence booster for the game. Then they started getting a little momentum but we came right back. All of the hard work that we’ve put in is paying off. We’re all good friends and we’re brothers.”

Although the Knights trailed 6-1 after 11 minutes, they weren’t ready to quit. Cody Torres (two goals), Dylan Sterling and Cody Kolbus (three goals) found the net and the Griffins went over six minutes without connecting to cut the lead to 6-4 at the break.

While Knights goalie Jake Burke made several big stops in the third quarter, Central struggled to move the ball down the pool and as a result, didn’t score until just 10 seconds remained, when Ryan Burke put one in. Meanwhile, McNitt’s goal with 3:16 left in the third led to a 3-0 run which put the Griffins in a good spot with one period left.

With O’Donnell collecting three of his goals in the fourth quarter, the Knights were unable to get any closer than three scores back the rest of the way.

“It means a lot to go out like this in our senior year,” O’Donnell said. “I was glad that my teammates got me the ball and I was able to complete what they handed off to me. We put in a lot of work and I give a lot of credit to our coach since he turned around our program. He pushes us and we put in the effort and that helps us succeed. This is a great group of friends and we really support each other and work well together. It’s a fun team to be on.”

Central has been a team that’s prided itself on its defense, but coach Jim Lock realized that East’s fast swimmers posed problems for his squad, which featured only four seniors.

“We’ve always been slow starters and then you have a swimming team like that which can go, go, go,” Lock said. “We get into the game and do fine, but when you let them get a four-goal lead to start, look at the difference, four goals. We had a lot of momentum going into halftime and lost it. They beat us 12-5 earlier and we don’t normally give up 12 goals. We knew what they were going to do and they did exactly that and we didn’t stop them.”