Lockport softball cherishing long-awaited return to state finals

Head coach Marissa Chovanec led the Lockport softball team to a state title in her second season as head coach in 2004. The Porters made it back to state the following season, but for the next 20 years had their postseason runs come up short of a return trip.

With a 2-0 win over Bradley-Bourbonnais in the Class 4A Illinois Wesleyan Supersectional on Monday, Lockport will finally be back playing on the final day of the season.

“An older coach that I feel was a mentor of mine, Jack Podlesny, he said, ‘At the end of the year you’ve got to be lucky, because every team is good,’ ” Chovanec said. “I think we’ve had a little bit of luck.

“At the beginning of the season, we were in a lot of really close games that were one-run games, and I think that helped our team understand what it takes to persevere through a one-run game or a tight game.”

The Porters came out on the wrong end of some of those close games early on, starting the season 8-8 before catching fire. They now enter state as winners of 17 games in a row and 23 of their past 24.

“We started out the season off a little rough, so a lot of people were like, ‘Oh, you guys aren’t going to make it far in the postseason,’ ” senior pitcher Kelcie McGraw said. “I think just proving them wrong and being the team to go to state after such a long time is just really exciting.”

Lockport has allowed three or more runs only six times in the past 24 games and picked up 10 shutout wins – five in the first five games of the postseason. The Porters are the only team in all four classes this season to have not allowed a postseason run heading into the state semifinals in Peoria.

The bulk of those scoreless innings have been pitched by McGraw, who has 33 such innings under her belt. In her past three starts, she has worked a four-hit shutout against Lincoln-Way East, a 10-inning, six-hitter against Lincoln-Way Central and Monday’s two-hitter against the Boilermakers.

She will now be looking to pitch the Porters to a state title.

“I knew our team had the ability to do it from when we flipped our season around,” she said. “After we flipped it around, I could tell our energy was completely different. Just being able to play with each other and trust each other, it’s just super exciting.

“I know we’re going to do good down there, or try to.”

One of McGraw’s fellow seniors, left fielder Rheanna Slavicek, worked a 10-pitch walk in the fifth inning Monday to spark the Porters’ rally and soon came in to score the game’s first run.

For her, the ability to play for a state title is an opportunity she has been waiting for throughout her high school career.

“It’s just crazy that we’re going to state,” Slavicek said. “That’s all I’ve ever dreamed of my four years, so now that it’s finally happening, it’s surreal. I have no words for it. I’m just so happy and so blessed we can go.”

While hoisting the championship trophy is the ultimate goal for Slavicek and the Porters, she said the chance to keep playing with her teammates for as long as possible has meant a lot to her.

“I’m excited to win state and just bond with the girls for the last moments I have in a high school season,” she said.

Lockport will face a familiar foe in Friday’s semifinals. The Porters beat Barrington 3-2 on May 24. Should Lockport beat Barrington again, it will face the winner of the semifinal between an unfamiliar Oswego team and Oak Park-River Forest, which the Porters beat 16-4 on April 12. The championship game is set for 4:30 p.m. Saturday, following the third-place game that starts at 2 p.m.

If the Porters are to claim their first state title since 2004 this weekend, Chovanec said the team just needs to keep approaching these games like it has been all year long.

“Keep doing what they’re doing,” she said. “Keep focusing on themselves and the things we have talked about all season, because we can only control what we can control. It starts with their mindset.”