Prairie Ridge beats Huntley for 18th straight FVC victory

HUNTLEY – The first half of Prairie Ridge 's 35-13 Fox Valley Conference road win over Huntley couldn't have gone much better for the visitors.

During that 24-minute span, the Wolves – who entered play ranked No. 3 in the latest Class 5A Associated Press poll – ran 32 offensive plays, compared to only 15 for the Red Raiders.

More importantly, they scored all 21 first-half points, while quarterback Luke Vanderwiel (24 carries, 238 yards) had two of his three rushing touchdowns on the night during that same span.

Vanderwiel opened the scoring on a one-yard TD run less than five minutes into the game. In the second quarter, Jack Finn scored on a 1-yard run of his own, followed by Vanderwiel's second ground trip to the end zone from 6 yards out.

"Our offensive line just keeps doing their thing," Vanderwiel said. "They continue to create holes and make things much easier for myself and everyone else in our option offense that runs the football."

Though it was a team effort, Vanderwiel accounted for 82.6% of the Wolves' 305 yards of offense (238 rushing, 14 passing).

As a team, Prairie Ridge (4-0 overall, 4-0 FVC) carried the ball 46 times for 291 yards, or 6.3 yards a carry. That was the plan.

"We kind of took their crowd out of it and put them to sleep a bit," Prairie Ridge coach Mike Frericks said. "Our goal was to keep the football out of the hands of their offense.

"Our thought was, if we were able to do that, and we controlled the clock and the line of scrimmage, we'd win this game. I was really pleased with how our guys executed our game plan, particularly in the first half."

The victory also extended the Wolves FVC win streak to 18 games. The last time Prairie Ridge lost a conference game was on September 16, 2022 to Jacobs.

Prairie Ridge also got a 3-yard, third quarter TD run from Jake Wagler, plus a 47-yard TD run by Vanderwiel in the fourth. He also had a 55-yard gain earlier in the second half.

Despite the one-sided final score spoiling Huntley's homecoming, the Red Raiders (2-2, 2-2 FVC) had a much better second half.

Huntley was only outgained by 25 yards Friday (305-280), thanks in large part to QB Braylon Bower.

Bower completed 19 of 29 pass attempts for 164 yards, without turning the ball over. Two of those completions were TDs.

The first was a 1-yard pass to Wyatt Fleck on fourth-and-goal, with 4:21 remaining in the game, to break up the Wolves' shutout.

Bower struck once more with 1:15 to play, courtesy of a 6-yard toss to Zach Rysavy.

"I thought our defense gave a solid effort despite the final score, Huntley coach Mike Naymola said. "But to their credit, Prairie Ridge kept the ball away from us and we had to play from behind right away.

"We need to do a little soul searching now. This group had a lot of success last season, and they're now learning to deal with adversity and difficulties. But they'll learn from this and grow as men and grow as human beings. This is a resilient group that will keep working hard."

The win by Prairie Ridge sets up a huge Week 5 FVC showdown. The Wolves will host unbeaten Cary-Grove, in a game that could potentially decide the conference title.

"It's gonna be a heavyweight fight," Frericks said. Whichever team can commit the fewest penalties and protect the football will have the best chance of winning that game.

"We'll have our work cut out for us. Last year we barely got by at their place, so they'll have a target on us for sure. I'm really looking forward to it. I played in the Fox Valley Conference once upon a time, and these are the kinds of great rivalry matchups this conference has a rich history of."