Just this past week the Illini Prairie All-Conference lists for boys and girls basketball were released with three Olympia High School basketball players making the list. Taylor Nowaskie, the senior player who broke Olympia’s all-time career scoring record, made first-team, Casey Wissmiller, also a senior, made second-team, and Saegen Pierce, a senior, was an honorable mention.

Taylor Nowaskie has already had a successful high school career and season and the addition of making first-team is a bonus. Along with her scoring goal, Taylor also worked towards making first-team, something she had achieved last year during her junior season. Taylor was very excited to achieve this goal, especially with all of the talented players in the Illini Prairie Conference this year. Taylor felt her team did well during the season and that “even though it didn’t end the way we wanted it to, there are a lot of fun memories to look back on.” Taylor will continue her basketball career in college at Lincoln Land and is also playing softball this spring for Olympia.

Casey Wissmiller was happy about making the second team and a little surprised by the accomplishment. She hadn’t thought “about All-Conference much during the season, it wasn’t something [she] was focused on.” Casey spoke about the beginning of her season and how she hadn’t been happy with her performance but found herself switching gears in the middle to end of the season and “really started playing to [her] full potential” which left her satisfied with her playing by the end of the season, something that also allowed her to make second-team. Her favorite part of the season was when the team was down 21-5 against Prairie Central and the team came back to win the game.

Saegen Pierce was proud of his team this season, especially considering the doubt many had for the team. He was proud of his team for what they had accomplished, making it past the first round of regionals in a comeback game against DeeMack, a favorite memory of his, and playing a good game against Central Catholic in the next round despite coming up short. Saegen considered getting the honorable mention as “one of [his] greatest accomplishments and definitely came as a surprise.” Saegen also acknowledged how it wasn’t just him, but also his team, that led him to this accomplishment stating that “stuff like that doesn’t happen without a great team though.”