Henry Knoll’s 25th goal sends Prairie Ridge past Lemont to third place in Class 2A

HOFFMAN ESTATES – Prairie Ridge senior forward Henry Knoll won’t ever forget his 25th goal this season.

The high-scoring Knoll has a knack for finding the back of the net, and he picked the ideal location to close out his stellar career – at the Class 2A state third-place game.

[ Photos: Prairie Ridge vs. Lemont ]

After not scoring a goal spanning over a game and a half at the state tournament, Knoll ended the dryspell with a goal in the 69th minute to lift the Wolves to a 1-0 win over Lemont in Saturday’s third-place game at Hoffman Estates.

Prairie Ridge (20-5-1) captured the program’s first state trophy since winning the Class 1A state title in 1999. With the win, the Wolves hit the 20-win mark and took some of the sting away from Friday’s 1-0 state semifinal defeat to De La Salle.

The Wolves were pressing hard in the second half but couldn’t score a goal until a throw-in by Samuel Kirk, who sent a pass to Chase Santucci just a few yards away from him near the sidelines. Santucci immediately touched the ball back to Kirk, and he delivered a pass to Gabriel Porter. The ball eventually found the foot of Logan Braun, who immediately saw Knoll lingering around the near post. Knoll eagerly tapped in a shot from a few yards away for a 1-0 lead with 10:51 left in the game – the Wolves’ lone goal in two state games.

“It was just a bouncing ball,” Knoll said. “I had a nice volley and it just found the net. It felt good to score. I think we could’ve played better. It feels good to end out on a win.”

With the entire Wolves’ team sporting platinum blond hair, Prairie Ridge senior defender Carter Fredrikson said victory was sweet for the 15 seniors.

“We were all banged up and definitely a little sleepy after last night, so it took us a while to get the ball rolling,” he said. “I think the second half we used a lot of the anger and emotion from last night to fuel us and give us the passion to win.”

Prairie Ridge senior defender Brandon Matei agreed with his backline teammate.

“It meant a lot because it was a long season with a lot of effort,” Matei said. “We knew we didn’t want to end it off going home not leaving it all out there. The leaders stepped up and the second half was the culmination of our whole year.”

The Wolves earned the program’s third overall state trophy, while the senior class ended with a total of 44 wins over the last three years.

“It’s incredible,” Prairie Ridge coach Josef Schroeder said. “It was tough to make a quick turnaround. We put so much emotion and physical effort in Friday’s game. It was almost a professional like (game). It took us about 40 minutes to get going. We showed up in the second half and were able to go home with some hardware.”

Lemont’s first trip to the state tournament ended with another shutout loss after falling 1-0 in Friday’s semifinals to Belleville Althoff. Lemont (23-5-1) had several players suffer injuries the physical game. The second half was marred by several yellow cards for both teams. The Wolves tightened up their defense in the final 10-plus minutes to secure the shutout.

“This game is always hard to play and is never easy because a lot of emotion went into the game last night,” Lemont coach Rick Prangan said. “I thought we played really well in the first half. I don’t think we were flat at all. This team has been really resilient…I’m super proud of their maturity and their mentality going into the game and how they played today.”