Girls soccer: Stevenson falls to unbeaten New Trier

Stevenson's girls soccer team has been off to a great run starting the season and the Patriots had to deal with another unbeaten team Monday night in the Deep Dish Classic hosted by New Trier.

The Patriots went toe-to-toe with the unbeaten Trevians for a full 80 minutes and even had to play a player down for the last 27 minutes.

The battle left Stevenson in a 2-1 loss to New Trier in pool play.

"It's a war and the beautiful thing about playing New Trier, you're playing against all of it," Stevenson coach PepeJon Chavez said. "It's a community and that's what I want Stevenson to become. That's why we work so hard in doing it. Who we're becoming is just maturity. Those goals on are a little bit of emotional security in front of the net and we'll get there."

The Patriots suffered their first loss of the season and are now 5-1-2 with their final pool play game against Lane Tech on Wednesday at home. New Trier improved to 6-0-5.

Villanova commit Emma Weaver scored her 12th goal of the season in the 11th minute for a 1-0 Trevians lead while Heidi Bianucci added another for New Trier off a free kick into the upper corner in the 35th minute.

But two minutes later, Notre Dame-bound Kalyssa Vanzanten scored her ninth goal and placed a free kick under the crossbar from just outside the box up top that cut the margin to 2-1.

"That really was a battle," New Trier coach Jim Burnside said. "We created chances and defended. Stevenson was good and they were really good. They were so athletic and they move to the ball so fast. You just have a lot of time on the ball. We scored on a real nice restart and on a shot. It's hard, what (Stevenson) did was they pressured us when we had opportunities, it was half chances. I give them credit for disrupting and pushing us to the limit a bit. It's fun to play that way, because it pushes kids' mind faster."