Coming off of a heartbreaking 13-12 overtime semifinal loss to Stevenson in the morning, New Trier team knew it had to put the loss in the back of its mind before its third-place match with St. Ignatius on Saturday, May 21, at Stevenson High School in Lincolnshire.

“We went home and I told them to restart and reset your day. Our captains pulled the team together and said ‘we don’t want fourth. We want to win third,’” New Trier coach David Rafferty-Flatter said. “We as a staff didn’t have to do much. By the time we went home, they were ready to get going.

“I knew they were going to be OK when they were singing on the bus on the way over here.’’

The Trevians rebounded nicely, defeating the Wolfpack 13-10 to claim third place in the state tournament, the highest finish in the program’s history.

“Knowing that no New Trier team had gotten higher than fourth, we realized we could do something special in New Trier history,’’ New Trier’s Henry Yavitt said. “I’m so happy for the seniors for them to go out this way, and for all of us to be a part of the best team in our school’s history.”

“To do this as a senior, it’s special,’’ New Trier’s Charlie Ryan said. “I couldn’t imagine a better group of guys to do it with.”

New Trier (31-4-1) was able to take advantage of four St. Ignatius first-period penalties, scoring twice while a man up. Mason McQuet and Ryan, who scored six goals in the semifinal loss, scored those goals.

Sam Yavitt also scored for the Trevians in the first, but the Wolfpack stayed goal-for-goal, ending the first period in a 3-3 tie. That’s when the New Trier defense stepped up.

While the New Trier offense scored three times in the second period, thanks to two goals by Danilo Scekic and a Ryan penalty shot, the New Trier defense held St. Ignatius without a goal until there were 18 seconds left in the period and even that was a ricochet off the post.

“We took the first half to kind of feel out what they were doing defensively and once we finished out what their strategy was, we went and countered it,’’ Yavitt said.

“We realized they were playing a heavy crash on some of our goal sets, so we realized we needed to do more swimming and driving, more of a motion offense instead of a stationary offense, because in the first half we were doing a stationary and they were crashing on us, making it difficult for us. We started moving, getting more ejections, I was lucky to find the back of the net and scored those goals.’’

The team came out a bit sluggish to start the third period, not being able to generate any offense until Ryan scored at the 5:12 mark. The Trevians then scored two consecutive goals, one by Nick Kish and the other by Yavitt, extending their lead to three, 9-6, after three periods.

After St. Ignatius cut the lead to two to start the final period, Yavitt scored two of the game’s next three goals  to keep New Trier at a comfortable distance ahead of its opponents. McQuet scored another goal with two minutes remaining and Henry Yavitt added his third goal of the period 23 seconds later to round out the New Trier scoring.

This year’s squad is the first to reach the state’s final four since the school’s 2004 team, which had previously had the best program finish. The Trevians came close last year, losing to St. Ignatius in the quarterfinals.Ryan says there’s a difference between this squad and those in years past.

“The team aspect is really important and I think that was missing on past teams,’’ Ryan said. “Playing for each other, not being selfish and willing to sacrifice some personal gains for the better of the team and everybody has that mindset on this team. Nobody cares about the stats, the goals, all they care about is winning.

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