NT turns in another 4-star performance

Members of the New Trier field hockey team celebrate their state title. PHOTOGRAPHY BY JOEL LERNER

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They gathered, every member of the New Trier field hockey team, in the basement at senior Audrey Kingdom’s house on Halloween Eve. It also was the night before the state championship game, New Trier vs. Glenbard West, an ideal time to escape and bond and laugh.

Trevians got comfortable on Oct. 30 and watched Halloweentown, a Disney Channel movie, rated TV-G. The plot: a girl learns she is a witch and helps save a town full of other supernatural creatures. Characters in the movie reminded some of Trevians of some of their teammates. Waves of laughter ensued in the basement. The 1998 movie spawned three sequels.

The next day, on the home turf in Northfield, in rainy, windy cold, miserable conditions, New Trier’s top-seeded field hockey team edged Glenbard West’s third-seeded club 1-0. It was another sequel in a long-running, highly successful franchise. Part 12, to be exact, and rated TV-G (short for Trevians are Good).

Stout defense and senior defender Rose Gorski’s goal helped New Trier (27-5) capture its 12th state title in program history, 10th under 26th-year coach Stephanie Nykaza and sixth since 2007. The lone goal came at the 22:32 mark of the second half, off a penalty corner. Senior Maggie Lake pushed the ball inbounds to classmate Gorski, stationed near senior Alison Denby. The ball deflected off Gorski’s stick and rolled towards Denby’s stick. Denby quickly fed the ball back to Gorski, who swung the only way she knows how to swing: hard. Hilltoppers defenders, along with the rain and whipping winds, were no match for the shot from the Cornell University-bound Gorski. The ball found the cage.

“Rose was huge for us, offensively and defensively,” Nykaza said afterward, steady raindrops failing to dampen her excitement. “All of our girls had the mindset, the right mindset, to do what they did today. It’s always about that, the mindset. It’s also about the girls. This was their show.”

Denby, a Middlebury (Vermont) College recruit, played a tireless brand of field hockey in the title game, keeping possessions alive with her stick skills and thwarting the occasional Glenbard West rush with her will. In one stretch in the second half, Denby briefly lost control of the ball to a Hilltopper near midfield but stole it right back.

“To play energetically,” Denby said of her primary role in 2015. “We all had goals in mind this season. We all came together today. It was great, seeing everybody pull together, fight. We’re fighters to the end.”

They were in the best shape of their lives on the final weekend of the season, coming off a splendid 4-0 state semifinal defeat of Loyola Academy on Oct. 29. LA’s Ramblers, featuring Illinois High School Field Hockey Association Player of the Year and Georgetown University-bound Lindsay Getz, left New Trier’s home field with a shots-on-goal total of zero. Nykaza knows you can’t win a state title on talent alone. Nykaza wants her girls to wonder, at various junctures of a season, Am I getting ready for a field hockey game or a cross country race?

“We run them hard,” Nykaza, a kinetic wellness teacher at the school, admitted. “They run; they lift. We condition hard.”

It certainly showed on Oct. 31. New Trier maintained possession of the ball, unofficially, between 80-85 percent of the time against Glenbard West. Maybe more. Villanova University-bound Claire Weaver, a captain, and Colgate University-bound Lake nearly connected on what would have been a beautiful goal at 10:15 of the second half, a right-on cross from Lake splish-splashing to the stick of a hustling Weaver. Every second of the championship game was a sweet one for Weaver, who sat out NT’s state championship effort last fall with a torn ACL. Senior Jessica Urkov, filling in nicely for an injured Kingdom, made the stop of the day, clearing a dangerous shot in front of Trevians junior goalkeeper Therese Cooney at 21:20 of the second half — a little more than a minute after Gorski’s goal. Urkov also made a key steal on another Glenbard West surge.

Junior Nell Van Schaack came up big. Senior Amanda David came up big. Lake, with only 4:05 left in the season, then made New Trier’s drenched faithful forget all about the nasty weather. She scooped up a free ball near a sideline and air dribbled it with her stick, tap-tap-tap-tapping it past a couple of Hilltoppers. It was a slick move, a smart move. It ate up time, precious time Glenbard West couldn’t afford to lose. It drew cheers from New Trier’s faithful.

Northfield was no longer Northfield at that moment. Northfield had become Fieldhockeytown.

Notable: Six Trevians made the Illinois High School Field Hockey Association all-state team: junior Nell Van Schaack and seniors Rose Gorski, Alison Denby, Audrey Kingdom, Sophia Crnkovich and Claire Weaver.