Team preview: North Shore Country Day
By Bill McLean
Degree of difficulty — it’s not just a thing in competitive diving anymore.
North Shore Country Day School’s girls soccer program has to prepare for a higher degree of postseason competition this spring after netting consecutive Class A state runnerup honors in the past two seasons.
That is, if the season ever commences. COVID-19 concerns, sadly, mean that the suspended campaign may be a 50-50 ball in the air as the window for a shortened season continues to grow smaller.
The Illinois High School Association (IHSA) moved NSCD to Class AA in 2020. A North Shore Country Day School girls soccer team had never won a sectional before 2018.
If you succeed enough and are a private school under IHSA rules, you get pushed into swimming in bigger pools.
“If you look at the [enrollment] numbers in AA, we are the smallest school by miles and miles,” said Raiders seventh-year coach Lizzy Giffen, who has been at the Winnetka school for eight years and also serves as an Upper School English teacher and associate director of college counseling.
“Excited about the challenge,” she added. “Excited to play in a competitive ISL [Independent School League] season, too.”
Her Raiders achieved a couple of program firsts in 2019 by topping Latin and capturing the ISL title. Giffen’s formidable crew went 16-4-0 overall, 6-0-0 in ISL play.
Eight starters, including leading scorer and senior forward Edith-Edwards Mizel, return.
Mizel — a two-time Chicagoland Soccer all-stater and the reigning ISL Player of the Year — tallied 20 goals and 16 assists a year ago. In the Raiders 2-0 defeat of Herscher in a state semifinal last May, she struck the first goal on an assist from then-sophomore midfielder Eun Hae Lillig.
Four Chicagoland Soccer All-State Watch List picks also hope to don NSCD soccer threads for at least one more season: Lillig and seniors Allie Charnas (midfielder), Julia Fortier (midfielder) and Caroline Segal (defender).
Charnas, a 2019 Illinois High School Soccer Coaches Association all-sectional honorable-mention selectee and Dickinson College recruit, made the ISL’s First Team for the third year in a row last spring.
Backs Gabbie Kaplinsky, Rachel Olatunji and Jane Scullion received starting nods in ’19, as well.
Promising newcomers in the fold include sophomore Anna Ristic and freshman Suraiyya Omar, Giffen noted.
“We had just [finalized] the roster when our school closed [due to the pandemic], so it’s a touch hard to say,” the coach said of not being able to name more than a couple of her first-year varsity players to watch.
Footnotes
North Shore Country Day outscored its first six playoff opponents by a combined 35-1 last spring, before falling 4-0 to Columbia (27-2-1) in the Class A state championship on May 25. Columbia placed seventh overall in Illinois in the Chicagoland Soccer Final 50 poll; NSCD was ranked 30th. … Raiders coach Lizzy Giffen’s teams went a combined 31-8 (.795) in 2018-19. … NSCD’s three regular season losses last year came against Class 3A schools Young (2-1, ranked 16th in Final 50) and Wheaton North (3-1), and Class AA school Lake Forest (1-0).
Click here to see the Raiders team page!
By Bill McLean
Degree of difficulty — it’s not just a thing in competitive diving anymore.
North Shore Country Day School’s girls soccer program has to prepare for a higher degree of postseason competition this spring after netting consecutive Class A state runnerup honors in the past two seasons.
That is, if the season ever commences. COVID-19 concerns, sadly, mean that the suspended campaign may be a 50-50 ball in the air as the window for a shortened season continues to grow smaller.
The Illinois High School Association (IHSA) moved NSCD to Class AA in 2020. A North Shore Country Day School girls soccer team had never won a sectional before 2018.
If you succeed enough and are a private school under IHSA rules, you get pushed into swimming in bigger pools.
“If you look at the [enrollment] numbers in AA, we are the smallest school by miles and miles,” said Raiders seventh-year coach Lizzy Giffen, who has been at the Winnetka school for eight years and also serves as an Upper School English teacher and associate director of college counseling.
“Excited about the challenge,” she added. “Excited to play in a competitive ISL [Independent School League] season, too.”
Her Raiders achieved a couple of program firsts in 2019 by topping Latin and capturing the ISL title. Giffen’s formidable crew went 16-4-0 overall, 6-0-0 in ISL play.
Eight starters, including leading scorer and senior forward Edith-Edwards Mizel, return.
Mizel — a two-time Chicagoland Soccer all-stater and the reigning ISL Player of the Year — tallied 20 goals and 16 assists a year ago. In the Raiders 2-0 defeat of Herscher in a state semifinal last May, she struck the first goal on an assist from then-sophomore midfielder Eun Hae Lillig.
Four Chicagoland Soccer All-State Watch List picks also hope to don NSCD soccer threads for at least one more season: Lillig and seniors Allie Charnas (midfielder), Julia Fortier (midfielder) and Caroline Segal (defender).
Charnas, a 2019 Illinois High School Soccer Coaches Association all-sectional honorable-mention selectee and Dickinson College recruit, made the ISL’s First Team for the third year in a row last spring.
Backs Gabbie Kaplinsky, Rachel Olatunji and Jane Scullion received starting nods in ’19, as well.
Promising newcomers in the fold include sophomore Anna Ristic and freshman Suraiyya Omar, Giffen noted.
“We had just [finalized] the roster when our school closed [due to the pandemic], so it’s a touch hard to say,” the coach said of not being able to name more than a couple of her first-year varsity players to watch.
Footnotes
North Shore Country Day outscored its first six playoff opponents by a combined 35-1 last spring, before falling 4-0 to Columbia (27-2-1) in the Class A state championship on May 25. Columbia placed seventh overall in Illinois in the Chicagoland Soccer Final 50 poll; NSCD was ranked 30th. … Raiders coach Lizzy Giffen’s teams went a combined 31-8 (.795) in 2018-19. … NSCD’s three regular season losses last year came against Class 3A schools Young (2-1, ranked 16th in Final 50) and Wheaton North (3-1), and Class AA school Lake Forest (1-0).
Click here to see the Raiders team page!