New Trier found themselves tied at halftime.
Senior Steven Cook, starting forward, played just two and a half minutes in the first half as two early fouls in the game forced him on the bench. A whopping sixteen turnovers by the Trevians in the first half did not help either.
But when faced with adversity throughout the season, the Trevians have responded. And Friday night, respond they did.
No. 3- seeded New Trier went on to a 64-56 victory over the No. 6-seeded St. Patrick Shamrocks on Friday Mar. 1, after a 26-26 tie at halftime. The win earned them a place in the sectional semifinal on Wednesday Mar. 6 against Notre Dame.
Cook battled back from his early foul trouble to finish with a game-high 26 points. He called his foul trouble “frustrating”, but said that “our bench was able to buy us some time and kept us in the game.”
The Senior forward credited the opposing team’s play, saying “St. Patrick pressures the ball and double-teams whenever possible, which was difficult to handle at first and we had too many turnovers in the first half. We did a much better job in the second half of handling their pressure and we were able to take a lead and hit free throws at the end to pull out the win.”
Senior forward Aaron Rosen provided a scoring punch off the bench with a career-high 17 points. Rosen felt that New Trier played a balanced game after the first half, saying “offensively, we moved the ball well and ran our plays well. Defensively, we got a lot of steals out of our 1-3-1 zone and did not allow their good shooters to get open shots.”
New Trier broke the game open in the third quarter to go on a 12-0 run, including two triples from Cook. During that stretch, St. Patrick turned the ball over five times, leading to baskets in transition for the Trevians. New Trier tactically switched between man-to-man defense and a 1-3-1 zone, which successfully threw off the Shamrocks.
Cook believed that they took the Shamrocks out of the game with the zone, saying “our 1-3-1 zone made it difficult for them to break us down off the dribble,” Cook said, “which is what Saint Patrick’s loves to do.”
Coach Scott Fricke was certainly pleased with his team’s effort. After the game, Fricke commented to CSL Insider, “I thought our kids showed a lot of perseverance tonight in a tough environment,” Fricke said while his players took turns cutting down the nets. “But we really tried to give that one away at first. We knew it would be an ugly game, because of St. Patrick’s pressure, but we just kept attacking.”
By downing the Shamrocks, New Trier improved to 26-5 on the season, matching the school’s single-season record for victories.
Previously, New Trier recorded a 26-5 mark in the 1999-2000 season and 26-7 record in the 1972-73 season. Both of those teams saw success, making it at least to the state quarterfinals.
Two days earlier, New Trier cruised to a 70-38 win over Schurz in the Class 4A Glenbrook North Sectional. The victory was propelled by Junior Ricky Samuelson, who shot 6-7 from the field en route to 15 points.
The Trevians started out slow in that game as well, finding themselves in a 9-19 deficit after the first quarter, where Schurz went on a 10-0 run.
But for the next three quarters of the game, New Trier dominated. New Trier took a whopping 35 free throws by the end of the first half, connecting on 18 of them.
The Trevians were up 60-28 going into the fourth quarter, and proceeded to play their bench. All 15 players on New Trier’s roster played, with 10 of them scoring.
Jordan Thomas, Senior guard, put the game into perspective, saying that “we started out slow against Schurz but we were a much more talented team so we ended up winning by a wide margin.”
New Trier played their first state playoff game yesterday against Notre Dame at Glenbrook North.
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