Evanston head coach Ray Austin is always hungry for more. But when his team beat New Trier by 504 pins on Monday evening, he couldn’t help but crack a smile.

“No coach is always happy. We missed some spares that we should have covered but the focus was ‘let’s beat New Trier and we got them,” Austin laughed. “The girls came out great and did what they had to do.”

Led by senior Jai Burgess’s team-high 563 across three rounds and senior Lily Pavelec’s 552, the Kits comfortably strolled to a 3043-2539 win over the Trevians at Classic Bowl in Morton Grove. Evanston led by 217 pins after the first round bowled and never came close to faltering.

Pavelec struggled early on in the first round, bowling an uncharacteristically low 124 to open the afternoon. However, the senior captain bounced right back with rounds of 220 and 208 to fuel the Kits to victory. 

“I always expect leadership from Lily because she’s a captain,” Austin stated. “You always want to come out and keep rolling no matter what your [first] score is. That’s what Lily did today.”

Pavelec closed out the tenth frame in the second round with a turkey, as well as ending her final frame in the final round with four strikes in a row.

“I recovered from a really bad first game,” Pavelec said. “My dad pulled me aside and said, ‘When you go out, you look nervous. You gotta go up there like you own it.’ So once I did that, everything else fell into place.”

Evanston will take on Glenbrook North in a two-game series on the evenings of Wednesday, Jan. 24, and Thursday, Jan. 25.

“With the end of the season coming up, we’ve got to work hard on spares,” Austin emphasized.
“Seven pins need to turn into ten pins. If we cover those, we’ll win. [I have] no doubt.”