Overtime Loss Sends Kits To Sidelines

Early exits from postseason play are always painful for the Evanston boys soccer program.

But when you have a team you believe is capable of winning the Illinois High School Association state championship --- and you come up short of that goal --- it hurts even more.

Arch-rival New Trier scored a pair of goals on free kicks Tuesday night and netted a 3-1 victory over the Wildkits in two overtimes in semifinal play at the Class 3A Evanston Sectional tournament.

New Trier defeated the Kits for the second time this season and ended Evanston’s bid to advance, benefiting from at least a 3 to 1 margin in fouls called by the officiating crew. Two of those calls led directly to scoring opportunities for the Trevians, who will play Leyden in the title game matchup on Friday.

Evanston finished the season with a glittering 17-3-3 won-loss record but didn’t have a conference or sectional championship to show for it. New Trier improved to 19-1-2 overall after also tripping the Kits 3-2 during the regular season.

The contest was played in front of one of the largest crowds ever to witness the rivalry showdown at Lazier Field. New Trier now leads the all-time series with 45 wins to 44 for ETHS, and there have been 22 ties.

ETHS head coach Franz Calixte was hoping to bring a squad that included at least a dozen players who won a club state championship last spring back to the high school state finals for the first time since 2004.

Instead they’ll watch the rest of the postseason from the sidelines.

“This is the deepest team I’ve had and we were starting to get healthy,” said a somber Calixte. “This happened too early. I really thought we could win a state championship. That’s what makes this so hard. This is a tough pill to swallow.

“One phantom call changed the game --- and New Trier got the equalizer. I guess the officials saw some things from a different perspective than we did on the sidelines tonight.”

Fouls that were called, and some that weren’t, played a significant role in the outcome. Bryan Maldonado’s goal, following a brilliant steal by Pascal Calonges, staked Evanston to a 1-0 lead in the 26th minute.

But that turned out to be Evanston’s last goal of the 2023 season. And when Diego Velasquez was charged with a foul midway through the second half, New Trier’s Cole Driscoll bounced the restart past Evanston goalkeeper Cade Likhite (13 saves) to pull the visitors even at 1-1.

The whistle didn’t blow at the end of regulation when, with 1:30 remaining, ETHS junior Joseph Sargent was knocked to the turf by two Trevian defenders to prevent a possible breakaway effort. The teams played on from there.

“Joseph broke through there, got clocked and there was no foul called,” Calixte said. “Most of the important calls were in New Trier’s favor tonight and it’s hard when that happens. We’d think we got fouled and then find out foul was going the other way.

“It’s tough even when you get ahead in the game, because if you’re playing a team that’s equal to you, you’re always worried about giving up that one goal. So you start playing more defensively. We needed to slow things down and keep the ball more. But we weren’t able to do that in the second half, and they got the equalizer.

“I thought we got back to doing what we needed to do in the overtime and we were dangerous. Then they got another call.”

The rest is history. Aidan O’Neill converted another free kick for the Trevians with 4:35 left in the game, and the visitors added some insurance on a goal by Calyx Hoover with 1:01 remaining.

In the first half, the Wildkits capitalized on a mistake by New Trier keeper Thomas Terry. Calonges pounced on a pass from the keeper that didn’t really have any pace to it, and slipped a pass to Maldonado for a go-ahead goal.

“Pascal is so fast, and a lot of people don’t realize how much speed he has,” said Calixte. “He can shut down the (open) space and get to it pretty quickly. He got it to Bryan, and Bryan’s as cool as a cucumber and he put it away.”