Season saved: Last-minute schedule additions mean Prairie Ridge co-op will compete this season

A lot transpired in 48 hours for one of the state’s top high school girls gymnastics programs.

Prairie Ridge co-op went from not having the necessary number of meets, which would have kept the defending state champion Wolves from any IHSA postseason series, to finding three more meets (and possibly one more).

Team parents received an email letter from District 155 assistant superintendent Scott Shepard, principal Steve Koch and athletic director Mark Gilbert on Monday inviting them to a Zoom meeting on Wednesday night. At that time, Gilbert thought the best option was to dissolve the co-op and let the gymnasts compete as individuals in the state series.

But Shepard started the meeting on Wednesday with more uplifting news.

“At this point, our plan is to move forward with the co-op,” Shepard said. “Some meets have been secured to provide our girls with a great opportunity to compete, and then compete at whatever the state series is. A lot has developed within the last 48 hours.”

The Wolves went from having one meet on their schedule to four in those two days. They now have home meets at Crystal Lake Gymnastics Training Center with Antioch-Lakes co-op, Carmel and Warren. Prairie Ridge also will attend the Lake Forest Invitational and Gilbert expects to add a meet at Stevenson, sometime in January.

The COVID-19 pandemic wiped out the schedule Gilbert had initially set up. The Illinois Department of Public Health limited schools to compete in certain COVID regions, which put Prairie Ridge in a huge bind.

Prairie Ridge, which also draws athletes from Cary-Grove, Crystal Lake Central and Crystal Lake South, is the only team in McHenry County. The only other county in its COVID region is Lake County.

“We had a full schedule going into June, we had our six (meets),” Gilbert said. “We were good to go. COVID drastically changed the landscape of athletics. The meets we had were not within our region. Our schedule got blown up.”

Gilbert talked with IHSA assistant executive director Tracie Henry about the idea of virtual meets and started to pursue that, but could find no interested teams.

“At the end of October, I was in panic mode,” Gilbert said.

The D-155 administration considered dissolving the co-op, a program that won state team titles in 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2020, and letting the gymnasts compete individually.

The Wolves’ top four gymnasts on last year’s team are two juniors, Gracie Willis and Sydney Hallsten, and two sophomores, Gabby Riley and Paige Magel.

All are Level 10 competitors in club gymnastics, the highest level. Riley is the defending IHSA all-around and balance beam; Willis is the defending state champ in floor exercise.

“I’ve been doing this well over 25 years,” said Prairie Ridge coach Lee Battaglia, who also coaches the girls at CLGTC. “This clearly, by far, is our best team we’ve ever had. This is incredible. We have some really, really good kids out there. A lot of teams know that.”

Gilbert and Shepard acknowledged that has become a problem for Prairie Ridge with scheduling. Some teams feel the Wolves are taking advantage of the co-op rules as they draw from a student pool of about 5,800 students.

“The co-op has to be re-upped every two years,” Gilbert said. “We have to get letters from a minimum of seven teams that agree they will compete with us in subsequent years. Each of the three times I’ve had to re-up, I’ve had more trouble getting more support. A few years ago, an AD targeted a by-law that almost passed that was geared toward ending our co-op.”

Gilbert has to re-up again after this year, although he feels the IHSA might be lenient because of the pandemic.

In the fall, the IHSA had no state competitions, finishing all four sports (girls tennis, girls swimming, boys and girls golf and boys and girls cross country) at the sectional level.

Currently, the gymnastics postseason has only regionals scheduled. However, golf and cross country began that way and sectionals were later added, providing hope that might happen with gymnastics as well.

“We found this out Monday. We didn’t know about it,” Battaglia said. “All of a sudden, ‘Hey, we’re not going to have a team.’ When I heard that, I was like, ‘Whoa, what’s going on?’ Some of the schools reached out to us and we have a few meets now.”

Battaglia credited assistant coach Lisa Rumford and CLGTC owner Lexi Redmond for helping pull things together. Prairie Ridge has only hosted meets at the high school before, which required an enormous amount of work moving equipment from CLGTC and setting it up. Gilbert said they hosted club meets then over the weekend while the equipment was there to help pay for everything.

Redmond has agreed to host the Prairie Ridge meets at CLGTC with Antioch-Lakes, Carmel and Warren.

Shepard said no guarantee could be made about next year, although the district hopes to again have the co-op.

“We, as a district, have made a commitment in the past,” Shepard said. “We have not looked to cut into those areas. We’ve supported our programs when they have the kids there to do it.”