Aaron Schock, at age 30, is...

...the youngest member of the U. S. House of Representatives and the first member of Congress born in the 1980s. Schock is also one of those annoying obstructionist Republicans, and the less said about him, the better.

I only bring him up because he's probably the most famous graduate of Richwoods High School in Peoria. (Looks like he still goes there, doesn't he?) And the Knights of Richwoods will be facing the Wolves of Prairie Ridge in the 6A final in Champaign on Saturday.

Now, I've written about P. R. ad nauseum (click here, here, here, here, here, and here), but who the heck is Richwoods?

According to Wikipedia, Richwoods High School is "the most northern of the three regular public high schools in Peoria." Does that matter? Founded in 1957, Richwoods enrolls 1,487 souls and competes in the Mid-State Six conference. The Mid-State Six is notable for two things: it has only five regular members and two of them are called Notre Dame.

The football team is coached by Roland Brown and is led on offense by quarterback Wes McCormack. Junior Kendrick Foster appears to be the stud running back, with 2,362 yards rushing and 32 touchdowns on the year. On defense, linebacker Michael McElrath leads the squad with 110 solo tackles.

The Knights began the 2011 season 0-3, losing to Pekin, Washington and Joliet Catholic. They then went on to win ten straight, including victories over such winning teams as Peoria, Notre Dame (Quincy), Normal, Crete-Monee (their only loss of the year), Danville, and Lemont (again, their only loss). Richwoods' combined score over those six teams was 222-123.

Here's a closer look at their schedule, with the last game first and home teams in CAPS:

RICHWOODS 34, Lemont 31
RICHWOODS 20, Danville 19
RICHWOODS 51, Crete-Monee 36
RICHWOODS 45, Normal 10
RICHWOODS 38, Galesburg 8
RICHWOODS 28, Notre Dame (Quincy) 14
Richwoods 44, PEORIA 13
Richwoods 45, MANUAL 16
RICHWOODS 58, Notre Dame (Peoria) 30
Richwoods 49, ILLINOIS VALLEY CENTRAL 28
JOLIET CATHOLIC 63, Richwoods 34
WASHINGTON 35, Richwoods 32
Pekin 29, RICHWOODS 28

Now these guys must have a lot of heart to come back from an 0-3 start and make the finals in Champaign. And to hand both Crete-Monee and Lemont their first losses of the season makes them giant-killers. But I still think Prairie Ridge is one of the very best teams in the state of Illinois. (Heck, MaxPreps has them ranked No. 1 over all!) I don't know if they're in the same league as Loyola or Bolingbrook, but I do think they'll win the 6A title.

BOWG prediction: Prairie Ridge 31, Richwoods 24.