Prairie Ridge rolls past McHenry to finish regular season unbeaten

McHENRY – Prairie Ridge has gained plenty of acclaim throughout Illinois with three state football titles and two second-place finishes since 2011.

But it still means a lot to the Wolves to take care of business in their own neighborhood. They were far from dismissive about completing the program’s first perfect regular season since its unbeaten back-to-back state champions of 2016-17 with a 55-0 Fox Valley Conference victory over McHenry on Friday night at McCracken Field.

“It’s pretty big, real big, because this is one of the best conferences in the state,” said PR junior linebacker Nicholas Schons after he had two interceptions for a defense that allowed only 54 total yards.

“It meant a lot to us,” said PR senior offensive tackle Fernando Rodriguez of winning all nine FVC games. “We’ve been going through this season and we’ve always heard PR isn’t going to be as good without (former star quarterback) Tyler (Vasey) and we proved them wrong. We’ve worked our tails off all year to show what our team can do.”

PR (9-0, 9-0), the top-ranked team in Class 5A by The Associated Press, showcased a lot in a variety of ways en route to a 48-0 lead 4:50 before halftime. Fernando and Issac Rodriguez, Zachary Helland, John Fallaw and Jack Pavlis helped pave the way for 407 total yards on just 38 plays.

The Wolves got the only points they needed on the first of two 5-yard touchdown runs by Jack Finn (10 carries, 59 yards). Dominic Creatore (5 carries, 67 yards) had touchdown runs of 4 and 28 yards and sophomore Luke Vanderwiel had an electrifying 56-yard touchdown run where it looked as if he was headed out of bounds, spun away from a defender and down the sideline to the end zone.

And Joey Vanderwiel threw for 97 yards and touchdowns of 15 yards to Elijah Loeding (3 catches, 60 yards) and 28 yards to Jackson Torkelson. His only incompletion in six attempts was on a drop.

“I knew they would be good but I didn’t realize they would be this good,” said first-year McHenry coach Jeff Schroeder, who was an assistant at PR last year.

“Our coaches said from the start this week our whole goal was to get better and get ready for the playoffs,” Fernando Rodriguez said. “They told us to finish the season strong and that’s what we did.”

Schons said “it wasn’t hard at all” to get his interceptions with his right hand in a large club-like wrap from a broken thumb suffered a few weeks ago. Jace Kranig also had an interception as PR had four takeaways and finished the scoring on a 13-yard touchdown run by sophomore Gavin Piekos (6 carries, 58 yards) in the fourth quarter.

“I’m proud of the guys for coming out and finishing 9-0,” said PR coach Chris Schremp. “It’s a tough, tough league and we were thrown into the fire right away (against Jacobs). It gets to be a bit of a gauntlet.”

McHenry (0-9, 0-9) was without sophomore starting quarterback Ethan Dietmeyer from a concussion suffered last week as its underclass-heavy team finished winless for the first time since 1969. But a big group of returnees ,including junior fullback Jacob Jones (18 carries, 62 yards), had Schroeder already excited about next season.

“I would challenge anyone to say our kids didn’t fight to the end,” Schroeder said. “They played hard and they’re already talking about next year and they want to turn things around here. With as many young guys as we have returning, I’m really proud of our kids and they’re going to have some high expectations next year.”