Atlanta‘s Hometown News Site

All Conference selections for the high school spring sports were just published! Many Olympia athletes earned conference and state rankings. Congrats to all athletes!

Many recent Olympia High School grads are going on to pursue athletics in college. From a class of only 86 students, 5 females and 4 males will be continuing their athletic careers. Most of them will be staying right here in Illinois, with just a few moving over to the bordering states. 

The sports season for OHS in the 2021-2022 school year concluded on Friday. Friday was the state track & field meet for our boys' team. The boys competed in the prelims on Friday but did not end up making it to the finals on Saturday. The qualifying 3200-meter team consisted of Anthony Ragland, Cooper Phillips, Owen Dare, and Brad Schardan. Owen and Brad wanted to save their energy for the 800 so the alternates, Logan Demling and Caden Clark ran instead. The team ran an 8:42.37 relay. Then, Brad Schardan ran the 800-meters at a personal best time of 2:00.20. Owen Dare was right behind him with a time of 2:00.26. Then, Keagan Uphoff did the 300-meter hurdles and had a time of 44.40. With Keagan being just a sophomore, he has a lot more potential to advance further in the coming years. He is off to a great start and ready for more! 

This was regional week for the softball and baseball teams! To begin, the baseball team played Clinton on Monday night, coming away with a 3-2 win. This advanced them to play Pontiac on Thursday. The Spartans were not as good as Pontiac’s baseball team and lost 1-14. Pontiac is now going to the regional championship game on Monday vs Tremont. Olympia High School hosted all these regional baseball games. The high school baseball season has now ended and the boys are ready to play travel ball. The baseball program is grateful for finally having a full season that was very fun and memorable, too!

Post-season for Olympia High School athletics is coming into full gear. Just this week Girls Track and Field competed in their IHSA Sectional Meet. Anna Beiber qualified for State at the meet with a time of 2:21.68, just 2 seconds under the state qualifying time. Melissa Bieber just barely missed the qualifying time by .29 seconds with a 47.98 in the 300 hurdles, which is less than a second off the school record. Boys Track and Field will compete in their Sectional this coming week on the 18th.

The Spartans started off the week with a win. The girls' soccer team played Decatur Lutheran for their senior night. But, instead of the traditional senior night, they had a foreign exchange student night. The three girls include Kaat Biskanter, Lea Gersdorf, and Sofia del Val. The soccer team won with a score of 4-1. Raquel Birky earned a hat trick. Brooke Rogers also scored a goal. Assists by Tarah Hilt, Grace Birkey, Kensie Kleinschmidt, and Andi Ewalt. Congrats on such a fun game! They had three more games this week too. It was a tie against IVC 2-2, a loss of 0-4 against St. Thomas More, and a lose 1-8 against Bloomington.

The Boys Track and Field Team started off their week successfully in Heyworth with multiple first-place finishes. Owen Dare got first in the 400, Caden Clark got first in the 3200, Keagan Uphoff placed first in the 110 and 300 hurdles, and the 4x200 team came in first as well as the 4x400 and 4x800 teams. In the high jump, Olympia took the top two spots with Chase Litwiller in first and Keagan Uphoff in second, and Chase Ragar placed first in the boy’s triple jump. 

The softball team was keeping busy this week. They began at Pontiac on Tuesday, coming away with a 2-0 hard-fought win. Shelby Finchum had a great fake throw to turn into a double play, keeping the Indians scoreless. Danika Frazier followed this with a 2-run home run. The JV team then picked up a 7-1 victory. On Thursday, the girls had a home game against rival Central Catholic. They won 10-0, scoring all 10 runs in the last inning. A double by Kat Springer started the rally by scoring Jordyn Turner. Other highlights include Shelby Finchum hitting a grand slam and a 2-run homer by Julia Winterland. On the defensive side, Danika Frazier threw a 2-hitter while striking out 10. JV softball followed with a 6-5 win. Saturday was a big tournament at Mt. Zion with at least 3 varsity softball games for the Spartans!

With lots of meets and games throughout the week, Olympia High School athletes had an eventful, and successful, week. Track and Field had first-place finishes at the Metamora Coed Invite with Brad Schardan in the 400-meter, Owen Dare in the 800-meter, a boys 4x400 meter relay, a boys 4x800 meter relay, a girls 4x800 meter relay, and had a third-place finish from Anna Bieber in the 800 meter. The boy’s track and field team continued their success at the Monticello Invite with Owen Dare once again finishing first in the 800-meter, the 4x400 relay team getting a first-place finish, a second-place finish in the 4x800 relay, and Keagan Uphoff achieved third in the 300-meter.

Olympia High School athletics had a successful week as many teams picked up wins throughout the week. Starting with girls’ track and field, the team placed 3rd out of 17 teams at the overnight meet in Greenville with only 4 points separating them from first. To achieve this placing the girls brought home 25 medals with Amelia Kistner finishing first in the 2-mile, Anna Bieber finishing second in the 800, Abby Litwiller placing third in the mile, Hannah Cleveland getting third in shot-put, Melissa Bieber finishing third in both the triple jumps and 400, Kourtney Fann placing 3rd in the 300 hurdles, and Chrystal Cornwell, Madison Bales, Anna Bieber, and Kaylie Dare got third in the 4x800.

Back from winter sports, Taylor Nowaskie earned yet another basketball accomplishment. She made it on the Pantagraph All-Area girls’ team. Taylor is at the top of the area team averaging 24.7 points per game. 

Cold weather, rain, and harsh winds prevented many Olympia High School sports from competing this week with many of the games being canceled. Olympia boys and girls track and field didn’t face these cancellations due to their indoor season. Just this week four members of the boy’s team qualified for the Class 2A Illinois Top Times Indoor Championship Track meet held at Wesleyan’s Shirk Center. Of these members are seniors Owen Dare and Brad Schardan who will run the 800 and 400-meter races and will also be competing with sophomore Keagan Uphoff and freshmen Cohen Alexander in the 1600 meter relay. From the girl’s team, Anna Bieber qualified for Illinois Top Times in the 400-meter dash and will also be competing at the Wesleyan Shirk Center.

Softball opening day was on Monday at Tri-Valley High School. Both the JV and varsity teams came out with big wins this night! Shelby Finchum and Casey Wissmiller both hit home runs, too! The final score for varsity was 16-2. On Thursday, the softball team played their home opener game against Brimfield. Varsity had a walk-off win in the bottom of the 8th inning with a score of 2-1. The Spartans overcame Brimfield in this game with 11 hits, 2 runs, and 0 errors compared to Brimfield with 3 hits, 1 run, and 2 errors. 

With all of the winter sports having come to a close, within the next few weeks spring sports will be starting up. These sports at OHS include; softball, baseball, girls soccer, and girls and boys track and field. Many of these spring sports had successful seasons last year that will hopefully transfer into this year’s season.

Spring sports for Olympia High School are officially underway. Olympia offers baseball, softball, girls’ track and field, boys’ track and field, and girls’ soccer at this time. All of these sports welcome athletes in each grade to participate at their appropriate level. 

All winter sports at Olympia High School have officially come to a close. Starting within these coming weeks Olympia’s spring sports will startup, all of which include; softball, baseball, Boy’s and Girl’s Track and Field, and Girl’s Soccer.

Monday night the freshman boys’ basketball team traveled to Tolono Unity to begin their end of the season tournament. Olympia played Tolono Unity in the first game. More tournament games were to be played later in the week, but were postponed due to weather. Therefore, the tournament should conclude on Saturday. 

As winter sports are coming to an end IHSA Regionals and Sectionals are fast approaching. The Boy’s Basketball team started the week with a win against IVC on Tuesday with a score of 53-49. On Thursday they faced Central Catholic where they put up a good fight, staying a few points away from Central throughout the third quarter, but couldn’t get it together to pull through a win and lost 48-69. The team has two more games before they start regionals on the 19th where they will play DeeMack to start. They lost a close game to DeeMack earlier in the season, 39-45, so hopefully they can pull through and gain a win in their first regional game.

Saturday, January 29th, was the start to a girls basketball tournament at Central Catholic for local JV teams. Olympia lost the first games in the tournament and are no longer competing for a trophy. The girls’ varsity basketball team competed in a crossover shootout between the Illini Prairie and Sangamo conferences. Olympia was lined up to play Williamsville based on conference rankings. A close back and forth game resulted in a loss of 59-61 for the Spartans, though. Monday night, the girls hosted IVC. This was senior night for Erin Dederich, Taylor Nowaskie, and Casey Wissmiller. The JV was very competitive and got the crowd all pumped up already going into double overtime. But, the Spartans were able to pull ahead and come out with a 38-31 JV win. Then, everyone was excited for the varsity game and senior night to begin. The whole team played very well together and won 60-36. Taylor Nowaskie had an outstanding game, scoring 32 points for the Spartans. This made her the Olympia High School Girls’ Basketball All-Time Leading Scorer. She also signed to play college basketball at Lincoln Land Community College that night!

Going 3 for 4, the Girls Basketball team has had a busy week. They started off at Peoria Manual where they won 57-33 on Saturday the 22nd. Then on Monday, they got a tough loss against St. Joseph Ogden 40-50. They then faced East Peoria on Tuesday, winning 59-20, and then faced Pontiac and won 61-48. Also, this week senior Taylor Nowaskie, who just recently passed the 1,000 point mark for high school career points scored, has now passed her mom, Mandy (Bryan) Nowaskie, and has taken over the #2 spot on the All-Time Girls Basketball Career Scoring List.

This week was very busy with sporting events for Olympia High School. Every day there was at least one competition going on, with multiple on many days. 

Olympia High School’s athletics had a successful week with the majority of the teams adding wins to their record and competing well throughout their games and meets.

Over winter break, Olympia boys’ and girls’ varsity basketball had the opportunity to participate in the State Farm Holiday Classic tournament. There were 4 brackets and classifications of games played. Both Olympia teams were in the small school brackets. 64 teams total came to Bloomington-Normal for one of the best basketball tournaments in Illinois.