With postseason high school baseball under way, many fans are searching for an underdog to jump on board with.
Well, if there's ever been an underdog, it's Hinckley-Big Rock.
The Royals ruined the best season in Somonauk history with Thursday's 4-3 win in the Class 1A Somonauk Regional semifinals. They will face Immaculate Conception in today's regional final at 10 a.m.
With only 13 kids in the entire program -- all on the varsity team -- and no regional titles in school history, the Royals are the very definition of Cinderella.
"We've got 13 kids, one injured, and that's the whole program," said coach Todd Prellberg, who is in his sixth year at the helm of the program. "We suffer like a lot of schools with numbers. Being only a varsity sport, it's tough for the freshmen to come up because they don't have much of a chance."
Tell that to Jack Peters. A perfect sidebar to the Royals' underdog tale, Peters, a freshman, cracked the game-winning hit Thursday.
"That's what makes what Jack did tonight just remarkable," Prellberg said after the win.
After years of not even having a baseball program, it returned 14 years ago and in Prellberg's six years at the school, only 2003 saw H-BR even appear in a regional title game, a loss to Burlington Central.
But this is the perfect time to do it. The IHSA's four-class system is in its first year, and the Royals are just the kind of team the system benefits.
Sure, they most likely would have faced Somonauk in the old two-class system anyway, but moving out of the area after the regional tournament figures to make the road to a sectional title and a trip to state easier.
To put it in perspective, Burlington Central, the Royals' nemesis in 2003, is now a Class 3A school that H-BR will most likely never again see in postseason play.
While that makes Somonauk's loss even harder to swallow (the team tied the school record for winning percentage with a 23-4 mark), it gives H-BR hope that a big run could be coming.
"We probably would have seen them in a two-class system, but we're in a four-class system and we'll take it and see what we can do," Prellberg said.
Not that a win over Immaculate Conception is any certainty.
But for one day at least, the Royals -- all 13 of them -- were able to bask in the spotlight for a change. If only for one day.
"I don't know what to say," H-BR senior Nolan Craig said. "It's just a sweet victory. We're looking forward to Saturday now."
Paul Johnson is a Beacon News columnist
Commentary: Paul Johnson
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