Right time to peak

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Prairie Ridge's Nick Margiotta (left) breaks away from a Marmion Academy defender before being brought down around the 30-yard line during the first quarter of Friday's game at Prairie Ridge. The Wolves scored their first touchdown of their 31-7 victory on the drive, giving them a spot in the IHSA Class 6A quarterfinals. (Nick Dentamaro – ndentamaro@nwherald.com)

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CRYSTAL LAKE – Prairie Ridge picked the absolute ideal time to play its best game of the football season.

The Wolves’ defense produced four Marmion turnovers, while the option offense, with quarterback Jon Williams’ sleight-of-hand, consistently had the Cadets chasing the wrong player as the Wolves raced for 275 yards on the ground.

Tenth-seeded Prairie Ridge dominated No. 2 Marmion in every facet as the Wolves rolled to a 31-7 IHSA Class 6A second-round playoff victory Friday night at Prairie Ridge Athletic Stadium.

“It was a great all-around game,” said Williams, whose 73-yard third-quarter touchdown deflated the Cadets. “I think it was our best game.”

The win puts the Wolves (8-3) into the quarterfinals for the third time in school history. Marmion (9-2) had won nine consecutive games after losing its season opener. Prairie Ridge meets the winner of today’s matchup between No. 6 Chicago Hubbard (8-2) at No. 14 Belvidere North (6-4) at 3 p.m. today.

“That was probably the best game we’ve played since Week 1 [a 41-14 victory over Woodstock],” Wolves coach Chris Schremp said. “[Marmion] has been scoring a lot of points and it was on big runs. They turned games into track meets. We thought if we could stop that and get ahead, it might be a different game.”

The Cadets moved the ball well on their first drive, but were stopped at Prairie Ridge’s 40. The Wolves scored in five plays and led the rest of the game. Fullback Tim Deering scored on a nine-yard run, and six minutes later running back Connor Greenwald raced 27 yards for a score.

“Their fakes were unbelievable,” Marmion linebacker Bobby Winkel said. “We had guys tackling the fullback when he didn’t have the ball and the quarterback was running around the end. It was so hard to read what they were doing.”

Williams finished with 13 carries for 91 yards, while Deering had 23 attempts for 97. Marmion had a good shot in the third quarter when it drove to the Wolves’ 18, but quarterback Bobby Peters’ pitch to fullback T.J. Lally hit the ground and defensive end Greg Drain scooped up the ball. Two plays later, Williams kept around right end for his long touchdown run.

From that point, Marmion unraveled. The Cadets lost a fumble on their next possession, then committed three penalties on the possession after that.

“We had a really good week of practice,” said Prairie Ridge linebacker Ryan Melbourn, who had two second-half sacks. “Our scout team gave us some great looks. The turnovers are something we work on every single day in practice. We set goals each game and our goal was three, and we got one more.”

Prairie Ridge had nice symmetry as each of its backs – Williams, Deering, Greenwald and Justin Henderson – all scored.

“The coaches were talking all week long that we have a chance if we play our best game,” Williams said. “The defense did a phenomenal job setting us up in great field position all night. We didn’t take advantage of some of them, but they did a great job holding their running backs.”

Prairie Ridge previously reached in the quarterfinals in 2001 and ‘07. Marmion won the Suburban Christian Conference Blue Division, beating Marian Central, St. Francis and Montini all by double digits.

“It wasn’t meant to be,” Tharpe said. “But it was because of Prairie Ridge. That’s a great program with some classy kids. We got beat by a better team. They out-executed us on offense, they out-executed us on defense. Their kids flew around with attitude and physicality.”

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