Wolves strive for goal No. 5

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When each member of the Prairie Ridge girls softball team wakes up this morning, it will be impossible to downplay the day’s importance.

Taped to the front door of each players’ house will be homemade signs reminding the Wolves what today’s appearance in the Class 4A Woodstock Sectional final means.

“This is Goal No. 5,” said senior shortstop Erika Trojan, who along with pitcher Johanna Turner was busy making the balloon-and-glitter laden posters Friday after practice. “We accomplished Goal No. 4, which was to make it into the sectional final. Now if we can win the sectional, we will be able to check one more goal off our six-goal list.”

The signs, Trojan said, read: “Goal No. 5, here we come!”

“We talked about staying focused, having a good dinner [Friday night], going to bed early, and eating breakfast [this morning],” Trojan said. “We’re excited to be where we are and we’re putting up the signs as like a team-bonding thing, but we’re very focused.”

The sixth and final goal on the Wolves’ no-nonsense list is to earn a berth in the state finals, which begin next weekend in East Peoria.

A win against Hononegah in the sectional final, which begins at 10 a.m. today at Bates Park in Woodstock, would advance Prairie Ridge to the Class 4A Barrington Supersectional at 7 p.m. Monday against the winner of today’s Barrington Sectional final between the host-Fillies and Fremd.

Last year, the Wolves were young, made up predominantly of juniors and sophomores who, after upsetting Jacobs in a regional semifinal, lost to Crystal Lake South in the regional final to end their season.

With the nucleus of the team returning this year, the Wolves’ expectations were significantly higher, hence the list of goals and the importance of checking them off, one at a time.

“Our team gets along a lot better this year; the chemistry is really strong,” Trojan said. “We’ve come so far this season. We got through a very tough regional (the Class 4A McHenry Regional) and we played a tough game against South Elgin [in the Woodstock Sectional semifinal on Wednesday], so we feel like we’ve been very tested and have come through a lot to get to where we are, but we have not achieved all of our goals yet.”

Hononegah (28-9 overall) beat Huntley, 4-3, on Thursday in the other sectional semifinal to set up the meeting with the Wolves (32-6).

The Indians are talented and solid both offensively and defensively. Pitcher Sami Taylor isn’t exactly overpowering – she struck out two and walked two against Huntley – but she hits her spots, Wolves junior outfielder Anna Patras said.

“We noticed that she throws to that outside corner a lot,” Patras said. “We worked on looking for pitches to hit on the outside corner. We just want to get good at-bats and be patient against her so that she doesn’t use her finesse to get us out.”

The Indians do not make many mistakes, either, and Prairie Ridge coach Mike Buck cautioned his team to be wary of making any errors of their own.

“You start playing games at this level and everyone you face is solid,” Buck said. “The team that makes the mistakes during this game is probably going to be in trouble. We know that and understand it.”