NSCD utilizes big-play attack against Trinity
Edwards-Mizel leads way in dominant performance over Blazers
By Patrick Z. McGavin
WINNETKA -- She has a great alliterative name, and a game to match. Edith Edwards-Mizel creates her own magic on the field.
A junior forward at North Shore Country Day, Edwards-Mizel burst on the scene in a major way last year in scoring 28 goals and creating 21 assists in leading the Raiders to unprecedented achievement with a second place finish in the Class A state tournament.
Now she is back for more. Like her team, she has an elevated profile and a reputation to uphold. She is passing with flying colors.
“I think I play a diverse game,” she said. “I am not a totally consistent player. I think if I can get a good energy for the game and in specific moments, I can really be successful.”
Edwards-Mizel scored two goals in the first eight minutes as the Raiders dominated Trinity 7-0 in the PepsiCo Showdown at the Skokie Playfields at the Winnetka Park District on Tuesday afternoon.
“We are a really fast team. And the way they played with a really high line, we were able to exploit that and play to our strengths,” Edwards-Mizel said.
The Raiders defeated Maine West on penalty kicks in their opening round tournament game Saturday. The weekday games bring together four schools from the same region. North Shore Country Day hosts Young, who beat Pritzker 4-0 Saturday, on Thursday at Skokie Playfields.
Edith Edwards-Mizel is also a throwback, a three-sport athlete who has a lyrical touch with the ball. She moves like a ballerina but a toughness that is second to none.
She showcased her terrific all-around talent as the Raiders (4-1-0) overpowered the Blazers. For her accomplishments Edith Edwards-Mizel earned Chicagoland Soccer MVP of the Match honors.
“Edith is kind of unshakeable in that she takes anything that is thrown at her, and she just attacks it,” North Shore Country Day coach Lizzy Giffen said. “If she gets frustrated she plays better. If she gets double-teamed she plays better. She is also really unselfish. There was not a moment last year where she asked or said anything about how many goals she had.
“She is just really focused on the team, and she is pretty humble.”
Trinity (5-6-0) could not really match the athleticism or speed of the Raiders. At the start, North Shore midfielder Emily Weil worked the middle beautifully and slotted balls to Edwards-Mizel in space.
“We’ve been playing together for the last three years, and we played together in club this year,” Weil said. “We have good chemistry, and we know how to find each other.”
Trinity had no answer.
The game served an important symbolic function. North Shore Country day is where new coach Kyle McClure hopes to take the Blazers. McClure has emerged as one of the state’s best young coaches with his exceptional work with the boys program at St. Patrick.
Inheriting a program with limited success or interest level, he has transformed the Shamrocks into one of the state’s best.
St. Patrick has won back-to-back sectionals despite moving up a class last year. After winning it first state trophy in in program history in 2017 with a fourth place Class AA finish, McClure surpassed that achievement by winning a loaded Class 3A sectional and taking nationally-rated Libertyville to the brink in a supersectional.
“My first year at St. Patrick we won two games,” McClure said. “It was very similar to this, and we got better every year for four years, and we are probably going to be peaking next year. You are going to see the same thing with Trinity. We didn’t start any seniors. We are going to start getting the younger players more playing time.”
McClure is the program’s third coach in as many years. He is ready to create a model for growth and consistency. The first step is getting his players to play year round.
“When I started at St. Patrick, we had maybe two club players in the whole school,” he said. “Now we have maybe 30. The thing with Trinity is not just to bring in existing club players but to have girls who want to play starting next year. I think you will start to see a lot of our girls playing club. We are going to get better from every month here on out.”
Freshman defender Bridget Whiteside represents the program moving forward. She knows the deck is stacked against her team at the moment. The whole point is to learn, push ahead and prepare for brighter days.
“I know it is going to be hard,” she said. “We are going to have a lot of games like this. I need to know that a game like this is going to push me to be better so that we are more competitive in our next game -- we either stay closer or even win and practice even harder.
“I am having fun with this team. I know we are not where I want to be personally yet, but I know in the next few years I will get there, and it will be a lot more fun.”
North Shore Country Day is a great deal more than just Edwards-Mizel. Weil scored a goal to go with her two assists. Midfielder Paige Forester scored two goals and added an assist. Midfielder Zinzi Steele smashed home a volley from Forester, and midfielder Eun Hae Lillig broke free for an unassisted goal for the 6-0 lead at the break.
Forester completed the scoring with her second goal. In goal, Abby Renaud and Peyton Hudson combined for the shutout.
Rather than use their state title run from a year ago as a springboard, the new year is more like an open text ready to be filled in.
“This is a new year, a new team, and you can’t rest on on whatever you did the year before,” Giffen said. “We are just focused on what we are able to control, and we are trying to get better every day. We think we’re a good team. We have confidence in ourselves.
“We have a lot of areas we can improve on.”
Edwards-Mizel said the team wants to be liberated and freed of the past.
“I think we are trying to think of it as a blank slate just because expectations can get in the way,” she said. “I think one of the successful things about last year was how much we enjoyed it. We don’t want to have expectations to prevent us from enjoying our time and playing well.”
These are exciting times for the Raiders. Playing in this tournament against schools with five or six times their enrollment is an impressive action.
“I looked up Maine West, and I saw they had 2,000 people and I thought that was pretty cool,” Edwards-Mizel said. “In the tournament, for us, it is more about taking it game by game and consider it more about how we are playing.”
For Trinity, the game is a hard, though necessary lesson in their journey to become relevant. Optimism is high on the future.
“I knew it would be a lot of work,” McClure said. “For me, the reason I coach is because I want to be able to make an impact on the program or the players. I could go and coach a program where the players are already good, where the players play club, but I feel like they don’t need a coach like that.
“This was an opportunity to take a program that has not been very good for a while and just really show everybody if you start doing things the right way, you can build a program really from the ground up.”
Starting lineups
Trinity
GK: Cristina Olmos
D: Isabella Whitlock
D: Bridget Whiteside
D: Jessica Olmos
D: Antonella Rivoir
D: Jessica Olmos
MF: Josie Poe
MF: Natalia Guerra
MF: Grace McCaughey
F: Kaitlyn Poulsen
F: Natalie Maine
North Shore Country Day
GK: Abby Renaud
D: Emily Smirl
D: Jane Scullion
D: Rachel Olatunji
D: Caroline Segal
MF: Allie Charnas
MF: Eun Hae Lillig
MF: Julia Fortier
MF: Paige Forester
MF: Emily Weil
F: Edith Edwards-Mizel
Chicagoland Soccer MVP of the Match: Edith Edwards-Mizel, Jr., F, North Shore Country Day
Scoring summary
First half
North Shore Country Day—Edith Edwards-Mizel (Emily Weil), fifth minute
North Shore Country Day—Edwards-Mizel (Weil), eighth minute
North Shore Country Day—Paige Forester (Allie Chamas), 13th minute
North Shore Country Day—Weil (Emma Smirl), 25th minute
North Shore Country Day—Zinzi Steele (Forester), 32nd minute
North Shore Country Day—Eun Hae Lillig (unassisted), 39th minute
Second half
North Shore Country Day—Forester (unassisted), 52nd minute
Edwards-Mizel leads way in dominant performance over Blazers
By Patrick Z. McGavin
WINNETKA -- She has a great alliterative name, and a game to match. Edith Edwards-Mizel creates her own magic on the field.
A junior forward at North Shore Country Day, Edwards-Mizel burst on the scene in a major way last year in scoring 28 goals and creating 21 assists in leading the Raiders to unprecedented achievement with a second place finish in the Class A state tournament.
Now she is back for more. Like her team, she has an elevated profile and a reputation to uphold. She is passing with flying colors.
“I think I play a diverse game,” she said. “I am not a totally consistent player. I think if I can get a good energy for the game and in specific moments, I can really be successful.”
Edwards-Mizel scored two goals in the first eight minutes as the Raiders dominated Trinity 7-0 in the PepsiCo Showdown at the Skokie Playfields at the Winnetka Park District on Tuesday afternoon.
“We are a really fast team. And the way they played with a really high line, we were able to exploit that and play to our strengths,” Edwards-Mizel said.
The Raiders defeated Maine West on penalty kicks in their opening round tournament game Saturday. The weekday games bring together four schools from the same region. North Shore Country Day hosts Young, who beat Pritzker 4-0 Saturday, on Thursday at Skokie Playfields.
Edith Edwards-Mizel is also a throwback, a three-sport athlete who has a lyrical touch with the ball. She moves like a ballerina but a toughness that is second to none.
She showcased her terrific all-around talent as the Raiders (4-1-0) overpowered the Blazers. For her accomplishments Edith Edwards-Mizel earned Chicagoland Soccer MVP of the Match honors.
“Edith is kind of unshakeable in that she takes anything that is thrown at her, and she just attacks it,” North Shore Country Day coach Lizzy Giffen said. “If she gets frustrated she plays better. If she gets double-teamed she plays better. She is also really unselfish. There was not a moment last year where she asked or said anything about how many goals she had.
“She is just really focused on the team, and she is pretty humble.”
Trinity (5-6-0) could not really match the athleticism or speed of the Raiders. At the start, North Shore midfielder Emily Weil worked the middle beautifully and slotted balls to Edwards-Mizel in space.
“We’ve been playing together for the last three years, and we played together in club this year,” Weil said. “We have good chemistry, and we know how to find each other.”
Trinity had no answer.
The game served an important symbolic function. North Shore Country day is where new coach Kyle McClure hopes to take the Blazers. McClure has emerged as one of the state’s best young coaches with his exceptional work with the boys program at St. Patrick.
Inheriting a program with limited success or interest level, he has transformed the Shamrocks into one of the state’s best.
St. Patrick has won back-to-back sectionals despite moving up a class last year. After winning it first state trophy in in program history in 2017 with a fourth place Class AA finish, McClure surpassed that achievement by winning a loaded Class 3A sectional and taking nationally-rated Libertyville to the brink in a supersectional.
“My first year at St. Patrick we won two games,” McClure said. “It was very similar to this, and we got better every year for four years, and we are probably going to be peaking next year. You are going to see the same thing with Trinity. We didn’t start any seniors. We are going to start getting the younger players more playing time.”
McClure is the program’s third coach in as many years. He is ready to create a model for growth and consistency. The first step is getting his players to play year round.
“When I started at St. Patrick, we had maybe two club players in the whole school,” he said. “Now we have maybe 30. The thing with Trinity is not just to bring in existing club players but to have girls who want to play starting next year. I think you will start to see a lot of our girls playing club. We are going to get better from every month here on out.”
Freshman defender Bridget Whiteside represents the program moving forward. She knows the deck is stacked against her team at the moment. The whole point is to learn, push ahead and prepare for brighter days.
“I know it is going to be hard,” she said. “We are going to have a lot of games like this. I need to know that a game like this is going to push me to be better so that we are more competitive in our next game -- we either stay closer or even win and practice even harder.
“I am having fun with this team. I know we are not where I want to be personally yet, but I know in the next few years I will get there, and it will be a lot more fun.”
North Shore Country Day is a great deal more than just Edwards-Mizel. Weil scored a goal to go with her two assists. Midfielder Paige Forester scored two goals and added an assist. Midfielder Zinzi Steele smashed home a volley from Forester, and midfielder Eun Hae Lillig broke free for an unassisted goal for the 6-0 lead at the break.
Forester completed the scoring with her second goal. In goal, Abby Renaud and Peyton Hudson combined for the shutout.
Rather than use their state title run from a year ago as a springboard, the new year is more like an open text ready to be filled in.
“This is a new year, a new team, and you can’t rest on on whatever you did the year before,” Giffen said. “We are just focused on what we are able to control, and we are trying to get better every day. We think we’re a good team. We have confidence in ourselves.
“We have a lot of areas we can improve on.”
Edwards-Mizel said the team wants to be liberated and freed of the past.
“I think we are trying to think of it as a blank slate just because expectations can get in the way,” she said. “I think one of the successful things about last year was how much we enjoyed it. We don’t want to have expectations to prevent us from enjoying our time and playing well.”
These are exciting times for the Raiders. Playing in this tournament against schools with five or six times their enrollment is an impressive action.
“I looked up Maine West, and I saw they had 2,000 people and I thought that was pretty cool,” Edwards-Mizel said. “In the tournament, for us, it is more about taking it game by game and consider it more about how we are playing.”
For Trinity, the game is a hard, though necessary lesson in their journey to become relevant. Optimism is high on the future.
“I knew it would be a lot of work,” McClure said. “For me, the reason I coach is because I want to be able to make an impact on the program or the players. I could go and coach a program where the players are already good, where the players play club, but I feel like they don’t need a coach like that.
“This was an opportunity to take a program that has not been very good for a while and just really show everybody if you start doing things the right way, you can build a program really from the ground up.”
Starting lineups
Trinity
GK: Cristina Olmos
D: Isabella Whitlock
D: Bridget Whiteside
D: Jessica Olmos
D: Antonella Rivoir
D: Jessica Olmos
MF: Josie Poe
MF: Natalia Guerra
MF: Grace McCaughey
F: Kaitlyn Poulsen
F: Natalie Maine
North Shore Country Day
GK: Abby Renaud
D: Emily Smirl
D: Jane Scullion
D: Rachel Olatunji
D: Caroline Segal
MF: Allie Charnas
MF: Eun Hae Lillig
MF: Julia Fortier
MF: Paige Forester
MF: Emily Weil
F: Edith Edwards-Mizel
Chicagoland Soccer MVP of the Match: Edith Edwards-Mizel, Jr., F, North Shore Country Day
Scoring summary
First half
North Shore Country Day—Edith Edwards-Mizel (Emily Weil), fifth minute
North Shore Country Day—Edwards-Mizel (Weil), eighth minute
North Shore Country Day—Paige Forester (Allie Chamas), 13th minute
North Shore Country Day—Weil (Emma Smirl), 25th minute
North Shore Country Day—Zinzi Steele (Forester), 32nd minute
North Shore Country Day—Eun Hae Lillig (unassisted), 39th minute
Second half
North Shore Country Day—Forester (unassisted), 52nd minute