Coming off of a nine-day layoff can be hard for any team, no matter how good they are. That was what New Trier was facing Saturday, March 26, having not played since March 17 due to Spring Break.

The Trevians started out slowly in the first half, but once they got going, everything was going in New Trier’s favor, as it rolled to a 5-0 win at Palatine.

“These girls have been traveling and not playing, so when we come back and play a well-coached, athletic, aggressive team, it’s hard to get into a rhythm, but we worked our way out of it,’’ New Trier coach Jim Burnside said. “For the past three seasons, they’ve scored the first goal against us on the season and they’re dangerous, so the girls had to grind it out.’’

“We always have a rough time coming back from Spring Break and when we came back this week it was snowing, so that made it harder to get back in the groove of things, but as the first half moved on, we started to click more and that’s when things started happening for us,’’ midfielder Celia Frei said.

New Trier had its first prime scoring chance in the 32nd minute, but was called offside, nullifying a potential goal. The Trevians wouldn’t manage another shot on goal for the next 10 minutes, but that all changed in the last 12 minutes of the first half.

Illinois-bound Kelly Maday got the Trevians on the board at the 11:13 mark when her shot hit the Palatine goalie and trickled into the net.

The Pirates had their best scoring chance with 9:53 remaining in the first half, but Sydney Parker chased down a Palatine forward as she was streaking toward the goal and knocked the ball away, keeping the score 1-0.

New Trier came into the game having outscored its opponents 13-0.

“What makes our defense great is our offense and what makes our offense great is our defense and both are linked by our midfielders,’’ Burnside said. “It’s about everybody being good at what they do so our defense can lock in and defend because our offense can attack. We’re still working though.’’

New Trier would score another goal thanks to Parker off of a corner kick with 2:25 remaining in the first half to go up 2-0 at halftime and essentially put the game away.

“When a team is being physical with us, we have to play our game and keep the ball on the ground because they were winning a lot of headballs,’’ Frei said. “At halftime we said we have to keep the ball on ground, keep moving fast and have them chase us.’’

The Trevians (4-0) carried all of the late first-half momentum into the second half and came out firing, scoring three goals in the first 10 minutes of the half.

First Avery Schuldt, who has committed to play at Dartmouth, tapped a ball in at the 34:00 mark. One minute later, Haley Yamada was taken down in the box and awarded a penalty shot, which Frei buried. Two-and-a-half minutes later, DePaul recruit Bina Saipi put the finishing touches on the scoring by taking a beautiful ball by Megan Murdoch and powering it past the Palatine goalie.

“This team is a bunch of veterans, they play together and what they’re able to do is make adjustments,’’ Burnside said. “I thought they made good adjustments to move the ball around and take advantage of restarts, just take a breath and know we can play.’’

Bucknell-bound goalie Dani Kaufman took care of the rest, saving every shot that came her way, finishing with three saves on the day.

The two-time defending state champion Trevians, who are ranked as the top team in the country by USA Today, have one nonconference game before conference play starts (April 7 at home against Niles North), as well as the start of one of the biggest tournaments in the country, the PepsiCo Showdown. New Trier has won the last two PepsiCo Showdowns.