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!

As the rest of the week went on, the varsity girls geared up to play conference rival, Central Catholic, Saturday night. Seeds for the IHSA state tournament have also come out. Olympia girls’ basketball earned the 2nd seed in their regionals! With a first round bye, they will play the winner of Deer Creek-Mackinaw and Peoria Manual on Tuesday, February 15th, at Normal University at 6pm.

Freshman boys’ basketball played East Peoria, Tolono, and Rantoul during the week. The Spartans won against East Peoria. The boys lost to Tolono 36-41. Then, they barely lost to Rantoul with a score of 61-62. 

JV and varsity boys played at Fieldcrest High School, too. Olympia varsity boys’ won 44-38. Right before the weather storms occurred, they traveled to St. Joseph Odgen, who is a stated-ranked boys’ basketball program. The JV boys lost and then varsity lost 40-90. Friday night they played another good team, Pontiac. The JV team lost 56-66 and varsity lost 30-75.

The wrestling team also got to compete in the IHSA individual regionals on Saturday, February 5th. The boys’ swim team had an away meet at Lincoln versus Lincoln and Porta on Tuesday and then a home invitational on Saturday.