Sports
New Trier Softball: Trevians Finish Fourth At State
Benet 7, New Trier 4. The Trevians jump out to an early lead, but Benet rallies to win third place at the Class 4A state tournament in East Peoria.
EAST PEORIA – New Trier’s softball team wasn’t projected to accomplish much at the outset of the season.
And despite the fact that the Trevians lost both of their Class 4A state tournament appearances this weekend at the East Side Centre in East Peoria, they walk out with a fourth-place team trophy in the program’s state-record 10th appearance at the state tournament.
After losing in heartbreaking fashion in Friday’s semifinal to St. Charles North, New Trier fell to Benet Academy, 7-4, in Saturday’s third-place game.
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“I think we were really ready,” New Trier senior Chelsea Delaney said. “We lost yesterday, but we’re in the top four in the state and we did a good job. That was one of our best games yesterday. It didn’t come out the way we wanted to, but we tried our best. Today, we thought it was a fresh start and we played our best again. Even though we lost, we played really well.”
The Trevians (23-13) came out strong against Benet ace Allyson Staats (29-10). Jackie Stern led off the bottom of the first with a single and scored on Leah Herlocker’s single. Then in the second, Molly Morrison drew a leadoff walk and scored on Mimi Morris’ RBI single to open a 2-0 lead.
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But junior pitcher Brigit Ieuter (17-9) started to get nickel-and-dimed to death in the third. Benet (31-11) strung together five consecutive singles, two of them of the infield variety, in the third to post a decisive four-run inning.
The Trevians responded in the bottom of the inning when Ryan Lee singled in Herlocker, but Benet added two more runs in the fourth to start to pull away.
“Brigit was pitching a good game,” New Trier coach John Cadwell said. “She ran out of gas at the end. She’s been our go-to person all year. She’s been a great competitor. She did not want to come out. She wanted to finish this thing out, so you have to honor that.”
Delaney added one last career highlight before it was all said and done, however. She fell down two strikes against Staats, her former Illinois Chill club teammate, in the fifth. Cadwell barked for her to turn on one from the third-base coaching box, and Delaney did. The solo bomb was her 11th of the season and last for the Trevians before she takes her talents to Kenyon College in the fall.
“We’re really good friends,” Delaney said. “I was really looking forward to hitting against her. I had two strikes on me and I figured she was going to throw me a curve, because that’s what she got me with the first at-bat. I waited for it and hit it.”
The future looks bright for the Trevians. Only six seniors depart, led by Delaney and fellow starters Herlocker and Raechel Cloud.
“I think what our seniors modeled was how to operate as a team, the kind of leadership you need to have to put together a season like this,” Cadwell said. “They weren’t expected to do anything at the start of the season. The girls demonstrated what happens when you commit yourself to a goal and help each other and you don’t think of yourself first.”
