In the last game of the regular season on Feb. 7, Girls Basketball pulled out a victory against Niles North by a score of 55-31.
Utilizing unselfish play and stingy defense, the team enters the playoffs after a dominating performance over their conference rivals. Senior forward Rebecca Goldman and junior guard Tinah Hong tied for the team lead in 11 points, but they weren’t the only ones who impressed their teammates as New Trier picked up assists on 17 of their baskets.
“I think Liv Becker really stood out,” said junior Katie Graf. “The refs were letting it be a very physical game, and Liv was really getting physical when she was posting up. She didn’t let the other players get into her head and she just kept playing her game.”
“Taite Ryan did an amazing job finishing at the basket,” said junior guard Ava Zaslavsky.
The team has worked hard on moving the ball around the court and being aggressive offensively in order to penetrate the other team’s defense and run up the score. Throughout the season, head coach Teri Rodgers has used a clever acronym to preach their preferred style of play.
“We worked on the acronym “SPURS” specifically. S: Supportive; P: Positive; U: United; R: Resilience; S: Selfless. As a team, we tried to implement this into all of our games and practices to make us work as a team as well as we could,” said Graf.
“SPURS” comes from the San Antonio Spurs, a perennial NBA contender. The Spurs also pride themselves in unselfish, ball movement-oriented basketball.
The game came after a slight delay, due to the incoming ice storm that hit the midwest when it was supposed to be played. It was an in-conference game, which is especially important because they are what determine the conference standings. Additionally, the in-conference teams are the ones that the Trevians will play in the first few rounds of the upcoming playoffs.
The team went 8-2 in conference games this season.
“There’s always pressure during conference games and non-conference games, but specifically in-conference because the games and records will follow us for the remainder of the season.”
Against Niles North, the team followed a seasonal tradition and decided to do something special for the players’ parents.
“Since it was our last regular season game, we all really wanted to play well and get the whole bench in before playoffs. It was our “moms’ night” and so we had all of our moms cheering us on behind our bench. We really worked as a team and worked on new skills to prepare us for playoffs,” said Graf.
With the regular season over, the team is now preparing for the IHSA playoffs. They enter with confidence, both internally and from a top ten state ranking, but they wanted to use their last regular season matchup to hone their skills for the postseason.
“In this game, I think we really focused on working on skills that we would be using during playoffs. We worked on plays that needed some tweaking and worked on the full-court defense that we would be utilizing in the coming weeks,” said Graf.
“I, along with the rest of my team, are going to work on stronger passes and how to avoid turnovers as much as possible,” added junior forward Colleen Floyd.
The team faced the winner of Maine East and Chicago Mather in their regional bracket on Feb. 12. If they won that, and based on the seeding (NT is the fourth seed, Maine East is the 13th seed, and Mather is the 20th seed) they certainly expected to, then they played the regional championship yesterday (Feb. 14).
Zaslavsky said, “Moving forward into playoffs we are going to have to practice really hard and stay focused throughout these games. These are the most important ones because once we lose we are done, and no one wants the season to be over.”