McHenry County notes: Prairie Ridge’s mistakes proved costly in Class 5A first-round loss to Nazareth

Prairie Ridge was so good at limiting mistakes throughout the regular season, so the start of Saturday’s Class 5A first-round playoff game against Nazareth, which saw the Wolves fumble on their opening possession, was not something coach Chris Schremp saw coming.

“It’s like we saved every mistake for today,” said Schremp, who is 187-64 in 22 seasons at Prairie Ridge.

The No. 2-seeded Wolves (9-1) went on to match their season total with three turnovers, all on fumbles, in an eventual 35-28 loss to the No. 15-seeded Roadrunners (5-5).

Before Saturday, Prairie Ridge had not lost a first-round playoff game since 2014.

Quarterback Logan Malachuk accounted for all five touchdowns for Nazareth, including a 1-yard touchdown run after Prairie Ridge fumbled on its first possession of the second half.

The Wolves responded with a 22-yard touchdown run by sophomore running back Luke Vanderwiel to tie the score at 21-21 late in the third quarter, but the Roadrunners marched down the field and took the lead for good in the first minute of the fourth quarter on a 3-yard touchdown pass.

“It seems like we could never get over that hump of making a big play like we had all year,” Schremp said. “Unfortunately, second half, they kind of picked us apart.”

Memorable season: Prairie Ridge, last year’s 6A state runner-up, won its second straight Fox Valley Conference title and made the playoffs for the 10th year in a row. After Saturday’s first-round exit, Wolves’ seniors reflected on their season.

“We learned something bigger than football,” running back-defensive back Dom Creatore said. “It’s a big brotherhood here. I love all these guys, and they know that. I know they’re going to be successful next year.”

Offensive lineman-defensive lineman John Fallaw expressed similar thoughts.

“When I moved from McHenry to Crystal Lake, I wasn’t sure how it was going to go,” John Fallaw said. “But everyone here welcomed me with open arms. They’ve really changed my life. The mission of this last season was to just give it everything I could.”

Welcome back, C-G: Cary-Grove missed the playoffs for the first time in 18 years last season and came back to the postseason in a big way with its 49-6 victory over Libertyville in Friday’s Class 6A first-round game.

C-G has now won 13 of its last 14 playoff games, which include the 2018 and 2021 Class 6A state title seasons. The Trojans fell to Prairie Ridge 14-13 in the 2019 quarterfinals. No. 3 C-G (8-2) has won six consecutive playoff games heading into Saturday’s 2 p.m. second-round game at No. 11 Highland Park (7-3).

Only three times during the Trojans’ remarkable 17-year playoff run did they not make it past the second round (2007, 2013 and 2017).

C-G’s last first-round loss came against Morris, 28-15 in the 1988 Class 4A playoffs.

Nervous moment: Huntley experienced a little anxiety late in the third quarter Friday when running back Haiden Janke carried for 7 yards, but laid on the field for a bit after the play and was helped off by the trainer.

Janke had 152 of the Red Raiders’ 288 total yards and Huntley, which defeated Niles West 26-14 in their Class 8A playoff game, only led 20-14 at the time.

It turned out that Janke had just cramped in both calves. He walked on the sidelines with his legs stiff, steppins on his heels, to stretch his legs.

“They both cramped up on the play,” he said. “After I did (walked on the sideline) I felt amazing.”

Janke finished with three touchdowns in a game for the fifth time this season.

Moving on: No. 8 Huntley (9-1) advances to meet No. 24 St. Ignatius (7-3) at 7 p.m. Friday in Chicago. The Raiders made it to the second round in 2019, missed the playoffs in 2021 and were ousted by Andrew 28-18 in the first round last season.

“This feels so good,” defensive back Zack Garifo said. “We were disappointed last year here.”

Garifo contributed with a huge blocked punt in the fourth quarter that defensive end Travis Dudycha recovered in the end zone for the final score.

“(The win) meant a lot,” Dudycha said. “We haven’t won a playoff game since 2019 and all these seniors working hard in the offseason and how much work we put in, it’s great to have success in the playoffs.

Tigers hung around: Crystal Lake Central was in the tough spot, as it was much of last season, with having wide receiver George Dimopoulos stepping in at quarterback for injured Jason Penza in Friday’s Class 6A 21-7 loss to Lake Zurich.

The No. 16 Tigers (5-5) finished with 214 yards and 14 first downs, and Dimopoulos, who will play receiver at Northern Illinois, did what he could. Central was tied with the No. 1 Bears (9-1) 7-7 at halftime.

On a seven-play, 65-yard scoring drive in the first half, Dimopoulos rushed for 34 yards – including a 9-yard touchdown run – while completing a clutch 15-yard pass on second and 9.

Dimopoulos also led Central inside the Lake Zurich 30 on three more occasions before the drives unfortunately stalled. That included one missed field goal and the final drive of the game, which concluded with the Tigers on the Lake Zurich 10.

Dimopoulos wound up 8-for-17 passing for 91 yards, including four completions for 61 yards to Carter Kelley. He added 54 yards on 14 carries.

Different spot for R-B: Richmond-Burton experienced two unusual occurrences in Friday night’s Class 4A playoff opener with St. Viator.

A 14-0 loss was the first time the Rockets exited the postseason in the first round since 2016. It was also the first time they were shut out since a 53-0 loss in Week 3 of that season to eventual Class 4A state runner-up Johnsburg.

“We didn’t execute like you need to to win in the playoffs and that’s my fault, nobody else’s,” Rockets coach Mike Noll said. “I felt we could win a playoff game or two and we have a very good football team.

“It wasn’t a good draw (against St. Viator), but that’s fine. We had a good week of practice and thought we could win. We needed to make a few breaks there on offense and put pressure on them and we couldn’t do that.”

R-B (7-3) had no shortage of opportunities with six possessions to the St. Viator 31 or closer. Three ended on fourth-and-5 plays, another on fourth-and-3 and the other two were a missed field goal and lost fumble. Noll said the inability to finish drives was more pronounced in games against good teams that included losses to Morris, Rochelle and St. Viator.

“It was just little things like penalties,” Noll said. “We’re a good offense but we didn’t get a lot of big plays this year.”

The Rockets did get some big ones defensively to keep St. Viator off the scoreboard for the first 39 1/2 minutes. Jeff Lehn had a sack and Oscar Bonilla had a stop for no gain on fourth-and-1 in the first quarter. Jack Martens intercepted a pass late in the first half and Logan Garcia’s pressure led to a Cooper Kmet fumble that Luke Rendtorff recovered 10 yards from the end zone late in the third quarter.

“We got some takeaways and we were opportunistic on defense,” Noll said. “They did a great job of keeping the game even. We needed to score and we didn’t, but our defense played really well.”

Since Noll took over six years ago, R-B won state in 2019, went to the semifinals in 2018 and 2021 and the quarterfinals in 2022. The team went 6-0 in the COVID-shortened spring 2021 season when no IHSA playoffs were conducted.

• Joe Stevenson, Andy Tavegia and Marty Maciaszek contributed to this report.