‘Miracle’ coaching job boosted Lockport

Updated: June 20, 2011 2:42PM

Since Marissa Chovanec took over as Lockport softball coach in 2003, there have been four seasons where the Porters lost seven games or fewer.

This season, they lost six games in two weeks.

Yet Chovanec kept her team together, and the Porters regrouped to finish strong with another regional title and a final record of 26-11-1.

With that in mind, Chovanec has been named Softball Coach of the Year by The Herald-News.

“I think at some point during that time a reporter asked me how do you get this going again,” Chovanec said. “I said we were hitting well, we just weren’t finding holes. We couldn’t control that, but we could control things like our small game and fielding and attitude toward that.

“Finally, everything came around.”

It certainly did as the Porters rebounded from that stretch, which had left their record at 13-7-1 after a 12-1-1 start, to win 11 of their next 12. Included was a 5-4 victory over defending Class 4A state champion Sandburg.

Recent Lockport graduate Kelly Bowler, who was the Porters’ top pitcher the past two seasons, enjoyed having Chovanec as a coach and loved how she kept the team together.

“She’s one of the best coaches I’ve had,” Bowler said. “She’s intelligent and knows the game so much. When we went through the losing streak, she kept telling us that she’d seen it before and that we would come out of it.

“Other teams would have crumbled, but she helped us through it so much and we came out of it.”

During one of the practices in that two-week stretch, the Porters ditched the balls and bats for a movie.

“It was one of those rainy days and we all started to pick at each other the way girls can do,” Chovanec said. “We couldn’t get on the field and we did a lot of running. But we also watched the movie ‘Miracle’ and the kids really picked up on that.

“They would tell me that I was like that hockey coach and that (Lockport assistant Rachel) Gensch was like the assistant. I was like, ‘OK,’ but it gave them a little refocus that not everything was lost just because we had lost some games.”

Chovanec also appreciates what Gensch, her assistant since 2005, does for the team.

“Over the years we’ve come into our roles so well,” Chovanec said. “She keeps the book and looks up stats and articles on all the other teams. She’s very knowledgeable. She played both infield and outfield (at Stagg and then at Bradley University) and that helps a lot in relating to the kids.”

Even though the Porters picked up on the ‘Miracle’ movie, there was no miracle finish at home in the sectional. Lockport ended up 26-11-1, losing a 1-0 home heartbreaker to Sandburg in the sectional semifinal.

Still, the Porters finished alone in second in the SouthWest Suburban Blue behind Sandburg and won a regional title for the 10th time in the past 11 years.

“The kids worked hard and got along together,” Chovanec said. “They did that outside of softball, too.”

Chovanec, whose career record is 250-82-1 in nine seasons at Lockport, always has been around softball. She was a pitcher and catcher at Rantoul High School, graduating in 1991. Her path brought her to the University of St. Francis, where she met her husband Paul, and then she got a teaching job at Lockport.

“When I was playing, my love was catching,” she said. “I liked to be in charge of the field and that was always what I loved doing.

“When I was at St. Francis I learned so much from so many coaches — Dick Smith, Bruce Foote (her softball coach senior season) and Gordie Gillespie. They all helped me develop.”

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