NAPERVILLE – New Trier midfielder Sybil Evans wasted no time.

Moments after receiving the ball in the middle of the field, the junior looked up and recognized an opportunity.

“I just saw I had space around the 18, and it was in the first five minutes,” Evans said. “So I thought, ‘Why not test the keeper?’

“I just hit a shot, and I’m happy it went in.”

Evans’ 26-yard missile zipped over leaping Benet goalkeeper Kate Grubish and under the crossbar with 35:23 remaining in the first half of the Naperville Invitational final. The goal stood as the game-winner in a 1-0 victory at Memorial Stadium.

It was the record sixth Naperville Invitational championship for New Trier (14-2-3), breaking a tie with Naperville North. The Trevians, who are ranked fourth in the Chicagoland Soccer Top 25, last won it in 2018.

The game presented an interesting contrast. No. 7 Benet (11-3-1) came in riding a 10-game winning streak but still was the underdog against a New Trier squad that has surrendered only four goals all season.

“We knew it was going to be our speed and quickness versus their strength and physicality,” Benet coach Gerard Oconer said. “So that kind of showed a lot in this game.

“With their goal, we stepped too aggressively on one of their midfielders, and they made us pay. She just hit a pea.”

Evans’ goal was only the 10th scored on Benet this season. She needed all of the pace she put on the shot to get it past Grubish, who excels on high shots.

“Anything around the crossbar, Kate has been so good this whole year,” Oconer said. “She’s saved us on those shots all year. That shot would have gone in against 95 percent of the goalkeepers in the state.”

The Trevians didn’t lack for shots. They got off 15 of them while limiting Benet to only four. Grubish made nine saves, including a leaping effort to tip Claire Gallagher’s 39-yard free kick into the crossbar midway through the second half, and Benet’s backline stood up smartly against tremendous pressure.

“They’re a great team, and they’re so physical,” Benet senior defender Bailey Abbott said. “We just had to keep doing it for each other.

“We just kept saying, ‘Stay strong, stay positive.’ Yeah, we’re down one, but we can come back. You’ve just got to keep pushing.”

The Redwings did. While they didn’t have a lot of sustained possession, they twice threw a scare into the Trevians in the first half with great counterattacks.

Rania Fikri drove into the box but fired wide of the left post at the 28:30 mark. Five minutes later, Ivana Vukas got a long pass and went 1-v-1 with a defender, only to shoot wide left as New Trier freshman goalkeeper Annie Fowler rushed out to cut down the angle.

“They are a dangerous team,” New Trier coach Jim Burnside said. “They run at you, and we needed to figure out a little bit and shore a little bit up.

“Annie Fowler came up big, had the perfect angle to make the kid shoot wide.”

As good as Benet’s defense was, New Trier’s was even better. Despite playing without three-year starting fullback Honor Dold, the Trevians maintained their iron curtain in the back. Gallagher replaced Dold and fit right in with Basie Shannon, Clara Deliduka and Kennedy Colegrove.

“I thought our girls did a really nice job,” Burnside said. “They were locked in.

“Claire Gallagher, freshman in the back, that’s probably the second game she’s started. I thought she had a great game.

“We played well, and the kids had fun out there.”

Colegrove had perhaps the toughest assignment at outside right back, where she had to contain the speedy Vukas.

“My main goal was to stay up tight on her on weak side and just prevent her from getting the ball,” Colegrove said. “I did not want her to slip across in front of me, so I just stayed ahead of her all the time.

“Even if I wasn’t right up on her, I made sure I knew where she was the whole time.”

That was a theme for the all of the New Trier defenders.

“We just stayed together,” Colegrove said. “We have a really good backline, and we are really good together as a team. We have great communication.

“I think working together and having a positive mindset and positive energy is always the best.”

New Trier’s defense, which has posted 16 shutouts, has been one of the best in the state this spring. Has it exceeded Colegrove’s expectations?

“No, I was pretty confident with our team,” Colegrove said. “I love our backline, and I love everyone on this team.

“We’re all really good at all coming back and defending as one.”

Of course, it helps when your team has the ball, as was often the case for the Trevians in this one. Benet rarely got possession for long in the attacking third.

“That’s one thing we’ve been focusing on all season -- keeping possession -- because we know we can beat some teams through possession,” Evans said. “I don’t think we possessed as much as we can and want to, but we’re on the right track.”

Winning the Naperville Invitational certainly indicates that.

“It definitely gets us rolling and gets us excited for what’s coming next, and we’re just going to go up from here,” Evans said.

Benet plans to continue riding its wave of success after great efforts against top competition.

“We’ve got to stay positive,” Abbott said. “We played so well this tournament.

“The loss is disappointing, but I think we had a great tournament. We made it this far, and we just came up short for once.”

And learned a tough lesson in the process.

“We played well,” Oconer said. “We kind of knew, though, that when you give up an early goal, it’s awfully hard against New Trier.

“It’s just difficult to get anything going, but we had two really great opportunities in the first half. If you get one of those, then it completely changes the complexion of the game.”

 
Starting lineups

New Trier
GK: Annie Fowler
D: Kennedy Colegrove
D: Basie Shannon
D: Clara Deliduka
D: Claire Gallagher
M: Sybil Evans
M: Addy Randall
M: Noa Boeing
F: Charlotte Dellin
F: Josie Noble
F: Jaime Elias
 
Benet
GK: Kate Grubish
D: Chloe Sentman
D: Abby Gits
D: Bailey Abbott
D: Meghan Sarros
M: Rania Fikri
M: Megan Bergman
M: Annie Fitzgerald
F: Johnna Caliendo
F: Eleanor Mahan
F: Ivana Vukas
 
Chicagoland Soccer MVP of the Match: Sybil Evans, jr., M/F, New Trier
 

Scoring summary

First half
New Trier: Sybil Evans (unassisted) 5’
 
Second half
No scoring