The look of frustration on Saline High School freshman Maddy Frost was palpable.

Just seconds earlier, it looked as though Frost would easily convert on a breakaway to give the Hornets their first goal in the finals of Saturday's girls water polo East Regional tournament at Pioneer.

Then, Monique Pentecost did what Monique Pentecost does.

The Okemos goalie stoned Frost on what looked to be a certain goal. Pentecost continually displayed exactly why she's considered one of the top goalie prospects in the nation with 13 saves in the 12-4 win.

More Coverage on MLive.com: Saline vs. Okemos Boxscore | Saline vs. Pioneer (semifinal) | Huron vs. Okemos (Semifinal) | Huron vs. Pioneer (consolation final) | Quarterfinals Results

"Against a long, tall goalie that can get up big, you really have to be able to hit your spots. And the shots that we did score were because we hit spots," said Saline coach Brad Silverman. "You just can't miss against her and we gave her too many easy saves. For a goalie of that caliber, too many easy saves."

Top-ranked Okemos jumped out to a 5-0 lead in the first quarter of the final, with most of its goal-scoring opportunities coming after saves by Pentecost or aggressive steals from the Chiefs' defenders. Okemos (32-0) outscored its opponents 33-8 across the two-day tournament.

"Having Monique in net gives our defense a lot more confidence. They're able to take risks, gamble on steals," said Okemos coach Greg Jenkins. "If we get a couple of steals early on that translates into transition offense, we build a lead and their confidence just grows throughout the course of the game."

The top four teams from both the East and West regions advance to the state finals at Saline High School on June 4-5. Along with Saline (33-5), Huron and Pioneer advanced after finishing third and fourth, respectively. Skyline was eliminated from the region after a 13-1 loss to Okemos in the quarterfinals on Friday.

Pioneer's state title defense will come from the dreaded No. 4 seed. After defeating Troy 5-3 on Friday, Pioneer lost a pair of heartbreakers on Saturday.

First, they lost 7-5 to Saline in the semifinals, a game in which Pioneer was down 7-1 at halftime before bringing the game within two with 2 minutes to play.

"I give (Pioneer coach) Will (Hart) and the girls a lot of credit," Silverman said. "They made a real run at us at the end."

Huron (24-9) was able to come back from a 4-2 deficit to beat Pioneer 9-8 in the consolation final. Kelcy Barott led the River Rats with six goals, while Diana Steele was equally impressive for the Pioneers with five.

Huron dropped to the consolation final after falling to Okemos, 8-1, in a semifinal. River Rat coach Even Koorhan hopes the upcoming state championships mirrors the results from last year.

"Pioneer got third place and we won the regional last year, and then they turned around and beat us in the (state) semifinal," Koorhan said. "You never know when things can change. We're very talented. We just gotta show a little bit more confidence from the outside shooting with those teams, because we know we've got the inside game."

Pete Cunningham covers sports for AnnArbor.com. He can be reached at petercunningham@annarbor.com or by phone at 734-623-2565. Follow him on Twitter @petcunningham.