The Evanston Wildkits defeated New Trier 65-33 in Friday night’s varsity boys basketball game.

The Wildkits improved to 19-3 (8-0 in conference) and the Trevs stand at 11-10 (3-4 in conference) on the year.

The team had difficulty containing Evanston’s Senior and Purdue bound Nojel Eastern, who put up 15 points.

Sophomore teammate Lance Jones also had a big game for the Wildkits contributing 12 points.

“We started off the game slowly and turned the ball over way too much, which allowed them to score easily in transition,” added senior captain Dylan Horvitz.

Head coach Scott Fricke believes the loss was a direct result of the amount of Trevian turnovers,

“When you’re giving up that many points off easy baskets it is going to be really hard to win the game.”

Horvitz tallied five points to go along with junior guard Andrew Kirkpatrick’s eight and junior forward Griffin Ryan’s five.

“They are our biggest rival, and this is one of the oldest rivalry games in the state of Illinois,” said senior captain Joe Akason.

Prior to the game, tickets sold for three dollars and were accompanied by a custom made New Trier basketball shirt. Despite the support, the Trevians were outmatched by their old rival in Evanston’s Beardsley Gym.

“Basically everything that could go wrong, went wrong, and that was very evident on the scoreboard,” said Akason.

“Their players capitalized on the fast break while we missed most of our shots, which made the game get out of hand quickly.”

“We allowed penetration in our zone which was one of the things we wanted to avoid going into the game,” said Fricke, “Once they penetrated our zone they were getting easy dump off passes which really hurt us.”

Going into the game, transition points was one thing the Trevians knew they had to prevent, considering the previous 54-37 loss at home.

“From the last game, we learned that Evanston would pressure us hard, and they were going to try to get out in transition fast,” said junior guard Patrick Lanser before the game.

“Our game plan is to play New Trier basketball: active defense, great ball movement, attack in transition, dive for loose balls, take charges, and take great shots,” he said.

Moving forward, the team is looking to improve and wants to make sure that “New Trier basketball” is in full effect every game.

“Our number one goal is to be playing our best basketball of the year on February 27th when the state tournament starts,” said Fricke.

“We’re going to communicate a lot and have the conversation about what each person’s role is. We’re going to work our tails off in last month,” Fricke said.

“We are going to work on the things that we can control such as being a good teammate, having energy, and being selfless on the court. We are confident that if we work hard, the results will show through wins,” Lanser said.

The team contains players from grades 10-12. “I think we are really close as a team so having kids from different grades isn’t a problem,” Horvitz said.

“I think possibly in the summer and early in the season it took us awhile to get used to that dynamic, but we’re getting better at it,” Fricke said.

The team has five more games until the state tournament, including the next two against Maine South.

“We know that we are a talented team, no matter what anyone says, and we are ready to prove it,” said Lanser.