Wolves join victory parade

Sure, Crystal Lake's official slogan, "A good place to live," works fine.

But "Home of winning baseball teams," rings a bit truer in light of Monday's events.

A few hours after Crystal Lake Central defeated Glenbard South 4-2 at Alexian Field in Schaumburg to advance to the Class 3A Final Four, Prairie Ridge turned the 'ol Crystal Lake double play on the same diamond.

The Wolves beat Carmel 5-4 in eight innings when sophomore Chad Ljunggren singled off the glove of diving right fielder Joe Pudlo to score courtesy runner Justin Henderson from third with the winning run as a light drizzle fell.

But not even fire hoses turned on full blast could have dampened the spirits of the Wolves, who celebrated their first state berth by hoisting the Class 4A supersectional plaque high above their heads for all their fans to see.

And what fans they had.

At one point in the fourth inning, the PR faithful stood and roared in support of starting pitcher T.J. Swank. It was enough enthusiasm to make the Schaumburg Flyers jealous.

"I'm so proud of these seniors and I'm so proud of this community," PR coach David Haskins said. "To come out and support us like this -- to be holding up signs and painting their faces -- that's just unbelievable support."

PR fans are supporting a winner, a team that broke free of some early season doldrums to win 24 of its next 26 games and improve to 30-8, a school record for wins.

Like most packs of Wolves, these worked as a team to benefit the whole. Senior T.J. Swank gave his teammates 6½ strong innings on the mound and Nick Martini pitched brilliantly in relief and hit a triple that eventually became the winning run. Several Wolves made nice defensive plays and they attacked the Corsairs (32-6) with 8 hits.

"This isn't an individual game," Swank said. "It's a team game and right now our team is on the same page. We're going to give it everything we have."

Prairie Ridge will play Neuqua Valley in a 4A state semifinal on Friday at 7 p.m., hours after Crystal Lake Central plays in a 3A semifinal, unofficially making it "Crystal Lake Day" in Joliet.

"Whatever they do in this town at the younger levels with travel ball and house ball and little league -- it worked," Haskins said.