OHS Weekly Sports Recap

The NFL playoffs got off to a hot start with the Wildcard round taking place last weekend. In six games, only one game was decided by a single-digit score. Almost all of the higher-seeded teams dominated their game, except for the Dallas Cowboys who got beat by the San Francisco 49ers. The two seven seeds, the Pittsburg Steelers, and Philadelphia Eagles, were outscored by the two seeds, Kansas City Chiefs, and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, by a combined total of 37 points. This made many NFL fans question whether the seven seeds even belong in the playoffs. Just last season the NFL introduced the seven seed and they have gotten blown out in all four games. This is definitely something the NFL will have to reevaluate this offseason. Aside from the blowouts in the two vs seven seed games, there were also a pair of blowouts in games of the Los Angeles Rams coming out on top against the Arizona Cardinals and the Buffalo Bills coming out on top against the New England Patriots. The two closer matchups of Wildcard Weekend were the matchups of the San Francisco 49ers pulling out the victory against the Dallas Cowboys and the Cincinnati Bengals getting the win against the Las Vegas Raiders. 

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.

After a 31-17 loss in Minnesota last Sunday, the Chicago Bears finished their 2021-2022 season with a 6-11 record, their worst record since 2017. The Bears started out the season looking like they had a shot to sneak into the playoffs after finishing the first five weeks with a 3-2 record. The Bears would then go on to lose eight of their next nine games, with their only win in that stretch coming against the Detriot Lions. Obviously, after that rough of a stretch, there is plenty of blame to go around, but Bears head coach Matt Nagy was definitely on the hot seat. Ending with a 6-11 record was enough for the Chicago Bears to part ways with Matt Nagy and general manager Ryan Pace. 

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. 

College football has already brought its fans some of the most exciting bowl games in recent memory. There have been a bunch of bowl games that have been decided by one score or less.  In my opinion, the top three bowl games so far this season have been the Cure Bowl, the Music City Bowl, and the Rose Bowl. All three of these games were decided by 6 points or less and had a high scoring, fast pace, back and forth rhythm to them. Overall, these three bowl games were the most exciting football games of the bowls so far, and maybe even of the whole college football season. 

AnElyse Sweeney is a thirteen-year-old gymnast from Armington with a very bright future. When she started at nine years old, AnElyse knew she would love doing gymnastics. It took her a couple of years at the start to find a gym where she would really be able to excel. Two years into her gymnastics journey, she found Gym Corner in Washington, IL, where she and her mother, Stacey Sweeney, felt she would truly be able to grow as a gymnast.

The American League MVP race is going to be a close one between two players who have both had historic seasons. The Los Angeles Angels Shohei Ohtani has been one of the most fascinating players since coming to the United States from Japan in 2018. Ohtani is a two-way player, meaning he can hit and pitch. Right now, Shohei is one of a kind in the MLB, making him that much more special. Many people say that there hasn’t been any other player in the history of baseball that can pitch and hit at the level that Ohtani is doing it at right now. As of Tuesday, September 28th, Shohei has 45 home runs and a 9-2 record and a 3.18 ERA in his 23 starts for the Angels. Ohtani has been very impressive but someone who has been having an MVP season as well is Toronto Blue Jays first baseman Vladimir Guerrero Jr. As the only player in the MLB with more home runs than Ohtani, Vladimir Guerrero Jr., or Vladdy, has also had an impressive season. Vladdy currently leads all the MLB in homeruns, runs, and total bases and leads the American League in hits, on base percentage and slugging percentage. So how will there possibly be a decision between these two guys who have both had incredible seasons?

A dominant three sport athlete, great student, and even better person. What more could you ask for out of a high school role model in the community? Taylor Nowaskie, a soon-to-be senior at Olympia High School, is this week’s athlete of the week. Nowaskie plays basketball, volleyball, and competes in track and field for the Spartans. During the 2020-21 school year, she was even a four-sport athlete. Nowaskie, a Danvers’ native, participated in cross country during what would’ve ended up being an offseason due to rearranged seasons because of COVID.

Austin Swan is this week’s Olympia Athlete of the Week. Austin is from Hopedale and will be a senior this year at Olympia. Since his freshman year, Austin has been on the varsity wrestling team and was a starter on the varsity football team in his sophomore season. As a senior, Austin is looking to have another successful year in sports, as he will be back out on the field and on the mat this fall and winter. 

Football fans couldn’t have asked for a better evening to watch a football game. Pork chops were on the grill as fans filed into the stadium. After a brief opening ceremony that included the Mackinaw JFL football teams, it was game time.

This week’s Olympia Athlete of the Week is Adam Swartzendruber. Adam is from Minier and will be a senior at Olympia High School this upcoming school year. Ever since his freshman year at Olympia, Adam has been an athlete for the Spartans. Adam has been a basketball and baseball player for Olympia starting his freshman year and just last football season, in his junior year, Adam also started playing football for the Spartans. 

Hunter Berges from Stanford is this week’s Athlete of the Week. Hunter was a class of 2021 senior and played baseball, basketball for all four years, and football his senior year. Growing up, Hunter was always active and involved in sports. His active childhood led him right into a high school career full of sports. In football, Hunter was a first-year player his senior year, but still managed to do more than enough to help the Spartan football team go 4-2 this spring. Hunter started at both wide receiver and corner for his six games of high school football. His athleticism and length were a lot for opponents to handle on the field. Hunter’s specialty was making the spectacular catch for Olympia. 

Kennedy Smith is an Olympia 2021 graduate from Waynesville who was involved in National Honor Society, Blue Crew, Varsity Basketball, Varsity Softball, and was a Middle School Softball Coach during her time at Olympia High School! She has participated in a year of sports unlike the rest of her time as a high school student. Despite this, she still enjoyed her time as an athlete and made unforgettable memories with her teammates and coaches.

This week has been a rough week for Olympia High School sports. Many students are sick, injured, or quarantined so they are unable to play. Thus, the week was much lighter with sports and activities going on. 

On Tuesday night, Stephen Curry broke Hall of Famer Ray Allen’s all-time record for the most three-pointers in NBA history. Coming into the game against the New York Knicks at Madison Square Garden, Steph only needed two threes to break the record. About halfway through the first quarter, Curry made a 28-foot jump shot that put him ahead of Ray Allen in threes. Allen, who finished his career in 2014, held the previous record with 2,973 three-pointers. In the 13th season of his great career, Steph leads the NBA with 142 threes made this season and he now is the NBA’s all-time three-point king. In 2015, Curry set the record for the most threes made in a single season, making 402. 

To start off the week, girls’ basketball had a home game against Heyworth. JV had a nice win of 37-17. The varsity also won 57-32. Leading scorers were Taylor Nowaskie with 23 points and Hannah Cleveland with 17 points. Wednesday night, the freshman team traveled to St. Joseph-Ogden and came out with a win. Thursday was an away game at Tremont. Since this game was much closer in distance, the Spartans had a fan section of students. Again, the JV team won by a lot. The varsity girls also lead throughout the whole game and came away with a 66-54 win. This advances the team to eight wins and only two losses. They begin conference play with home games on both Monday and Thursday of this coming week. On Saturday morning, the freshman girls played a home game against Normal Community and lost 29-52.

This college football season has been anything but normal. With College Football Playoff mainstays like Clemson, Ohio State, and Oklahoma not even reaching their conference championship games, college football fans knew that the Playoff would probably look different this year. Even Alabama was at risk of not making it to the College Football Playoff before they took down the undefeated, number one ranked Georgia Bulldogs in the SEC Championship game, locking in a trip to the CFP for the seventh time in eight years. Alabama was the underdog in this game for the first time in 93 games, but the College Football Playoff was not about to crown a national champion without having the Crimson Tide in the mix. There are still three fairly unfamiliar faces in the CFP this year with number two Michigan, number three Georgia, and number four Cincinnati. Georgia has made the Playoff one time before, but both Michigan and Cincinnati are in for the first time. All four of these teams are clearly very talented, making it to the top four and having the opportunity to play for a national championship, but which team will come out on top?

Olympia High School’s winter sports are now in full motion, most having begun their season last week and continuing into this week. Multiple of the teams have had early successes, showing promise for the season to come.

The college football world was shaken up last Sunday afternoon after Oklahoma Sooners head coach, Lincoln Riley, announced that he will be the head coach at the University of Southern California next season. After last weekend’s loss to the Sooners’ rival, Oklahoma State, Riley was asked to comment on the many rumors that he was set to become the next head coach at Louisiana State University. Before the inquiring reporter could even finish his question, Riley stopped him and said, “Let me stop you right there, I’m not going to be the next coach at LSU.” Oklahoma’s loss last weekend was their first loss to Oklahoma State since 2014 and the Sooners will be missing the Big 12 championship game for the first time since 2003. Although this was a devastating loss for Oklahoma, Riley’s postgame interview gave the Sooners’ fans hope that their successful young coach would be staying in Norman. Unfortunately for them, Riley had other plans. He didn’t lie to his team and his fans at Oklahoma in his postgame interview, he just didn’t tell them the whole truth. 

To finish up the Turkey Tussle tournament, the Varsity girls’ basketball team played against Riverton on Thursday. This game was a close battle the whole night, with the Spartans pulling ahead with the win by just one point. The Olympia Spartans then advanced to the third-place game at Clinton High School on Saturday. From the other bracket, Olympia matched up against Clinton. After a long game, Clinton pulled away with the win by just a few points. 

The National Football League has been playing games on Thanksgiving Day since its inception in 1920. The NFL’s Thanksgiving Day games have traditionally included one game hosted by the Detroit Lions since 1934, one game hosted by the Dallas Cowboys since 1966, and a third prime-time game has been played since 2006. This prime-time game has no fixed host and features different teams every year, mainly consisting of division rivals ever since 2012. This year the Lions host the Bears, the Cowboys host the Raiders, and the primetime game will be the Bills against the Saints in New Orleans. Since the NFL has been playing games on Thanksgiving Day, there has only been one team to not play on the holiday, the Jacksonville Jaguars. 

In these next coming weeks winter sports at Olympia are beginning to start. The Girls’ Basketball team started their first week of games this week, coming out of it with a win and loss for both the Varsity and Freshmen teams. The Varsity team played TCSV on Monday and won 57-29 and then played Mt. Pulaski on Tuesday losing 45-54. The Freshmen team played Metamora on Tuesday and ended up losing  20-45. They finished their week off on Thursday playing Lincoln and winning the game by four points. The JV Girls’ team hasn’t played yet, but so far the girls are off to a good start. This weekend the Varsity team has a tournament at Clinton and then they will play Athens on Monday.

The National Football League has been playing games on Thanksgiving Day since its inception in 1920. The NFL’s Thanksgiving Day games have traditionally included one game hosted by the Detroit Lions since 1934, one game hosted by the Dallas Cowboys since 1966, and a third prime-time game has been played since 2006. This prime-time game has no fixed host and features different teams every year, mainly consisting of division rivals ever since 2012. This year the Lions host the Bears, the Cowboys host the Raiders, and the primetime game will be the Bills against the Saints in New Orleans. Since the NFL has been playing games on Thanksgiving Day, there has only been one team to not play on the holiday, the Jacksonville Jaguars. 

On Friday evening, the Dee-Mack Booster Club hosted a Winter Meet the Chiefs event at the Mackinaw High School. The evening started at 5:00 P.M. with an introduction to the Mackinaw High School band, who then played the National Anthem followed by the Dee-Mack School Fight Song. The Spirit Team was also introduced, followed by the Scholastic Bowl team. Next, the wrestling team rolled out 2 of their mats and the 8 wrestlers split off into pairs and gave Dee-Mack fans a quick exhibition of the drills they run during practice, before being introduced. The wrestling team is coached by Timothy Thomas and their first meet is on Tuesday November 30th, at 5:30 P.M., at home.

Friday night was Spartan Night at Olympia High School for a winter sports preview to parents and spectators. To begin the night, the pep band played the National Anthem. Directly after, cheer and dance performed the school song. All teams were dressed in uniform for team, individual, and senior banner pictures. Then, Mike Castleman, Olympia High School's Athletic Director, recognized the speech team. These students were responsible for announcing all individual players and teams for the winter sports season. The night finished with various scrimmages of boys’ basketball, girls’ basketball, and wrestling. 

The 2021-2022 college basketball season is just about under way and the Illinois State Redbirds are poised for a bounce back season after going 7-18 last year. The Birds have three out of their five starters returning and eleven out of their fifteen letterwinners returning for this upcoming season. Having that many players returning is always a plus, especially when two of them are Antonio Reeves and Josiah Strong. Last season, Reeves and Strong both averaged double digit points per game. Reeves averaged 12.4 points per game and had 82 rebounds and 36 assists while making starts in 24 out of the 25 games Illinois State played last season. Strong averaged 11.5 points per game, made 37 percent of his three pointers, and had 59 assists. With these productive playmakers returning for Illinois State and a handful of key new guys coming in, the Birds could have an exciting 2021-2022 season. 

As the fall season of sports dies down, many sports and activities at Olympia High School have reached their post-season. Last Saturday the 30th the Boys and Girls Cross Country teams both competed in their sectional meet. At this meet, the Boys Team took second with Owen Dare finishing 10th and Carter Phillips finishing 21st. The Girls Team finished 3rd overall with Anna Bieber taking 15th and Abby Litwiller taking 21st.

On Tuesday night, the Atlanta Braves won the World Series in game six against the Houston Astros. This is the Braves first World Series Championship since 1995 and their 4th championship in franchise history. This Atlanta Braves team was an exciting team to watch for all baseball fans, not just Braves fans. With guys like Freddie Freeman, Ozzie Albies, Joc Pederson and the World Series MVP Jorge Soler, this team was easily likeable. The combination of a bunch of guys that are easy to root for and a great story to this season made it seem like all of baseball’s fans were pulling for the Braves, except maybe Astros fans. 

Football playoff time is upon us once again as our Dee-Mack Chiefs hosted The North Lawndale College Prep High School (Phoenix) on Saturday afternoon. North Lawndale received the initial kickoff and quickly found themselves punting. Lucas Blumeyer received and ran the ball back about 30, leaving the Chiefs with excellent field position. Brent Denniston was repeatedly used to march the ball down the field, with Blumeyer getting into the end zone on a very impressive reverse to the left. The 2 point conversion attempt was no good. 

To conclude the high school football season, the JV team traveled to El-Paso Gridley Monday night. This was a Varsity preview game for next year for both schools. The Spartans finished strong with a 50-8 win. Good job to all the players, coaches, and fans. The loyal support of our football teams does not go unnoticed.

Last Sunday, in Tampa Bay, the Buccaneers rolled the Chicago Bears 38-3, and improved their record to 6-1. The Bucs have been having a great start to their season, with some impressive wins and their only loss coming to a very strong Los Angeles Rams team. Tom Brady has definitely made his impact on the Buccaneers, already winning them their second Super Bowl in franchise history last season, in only his first season with the team. Already this season with the Bucs, Brady has made history in the recordbooks with two incredible passing records. In week four, the Buccaneers traveled to Brady’s home for his first twenty years in the NFL, New England. Going into the game against the Patriots, Brady needed only 68 passing yards to surpass Drew Brees’ all time career passing yards record of 80,358 yards. It didn’t take long for Brady to set the record, as he completed a 28 yard pass to Mike Evans in the first quarter. The Buccaneers would also end up beating the Patriots in what could have been Brady’s final game in New England. Brady also joined a group of only three other quarterbacks, Peyton Manning, Drew Brees and Brett Favre as the only quarterbacks that have beaten every team in the NFL. It was quite the historic night for Tom Brady in his homecoming game against the Patriots. 

To kick off the week of OHS activities, on the 16th the Boys and Girls Cross Country teams both competed in the St. Anthony Invite. In this meet, most of the girls and boys from the teams placed in the top forty. The Boys Team got first overall in this meet and the Girls Team got second overall.       The Girls Swim team had a meet at Porta High School where the team did really well. Isabelle Forrest got first in the 200 IM and the team also got first and second in the 200 Medley Relay. Just like many other fall sports, their postseason is fast approaching with their sectional meet two weeks from now. With only a few weeks left of normal meets, the season will soon come to an end and winter sports will be starting.

The Dee-Mack Chiefs suffered a loss against the Eureka Hornets at home Friday night, with a final score of 29-20. The Chiefs started the game with possession of the ball and marched up the field to Eureka’s 22-yard line before turning the ball over on downs. Eureka fired back with an 85-yard touchdown reception and extra point kick for an early 7-0 lead. Not to be outdone, The Chiefs had multiple runs up the middle, resulting in a touchdown. The 2-point conversion was good, putting the Chiefs in the lead 8-7.

The NBA season has just recently gotten underway, with games tipping off this past Tuesday. The Chicago Bulls, a team with a lot of excitement and anticipation, started their season on Wednesday against the Pistons. Bulls fans have many reasons to have faith in this newly assembled team. After an offseason filled with roster changes, there are going to be plenty of new faces playing in Chicago, many of which will see plenty of playing time or even be starters for the Bulls in the 2021-2022 season. A couple major additions that the Bulls made in the offseason included DeMar DeRozan from Toronto, Lonzo Ball from New Orleans, Derrick Jones from Portland, Alex Caruso from the Lakers, and Ayo Dosumnu from the University of Illinois. All of these additions showed Bulls fans that the management thinks that Chicago can win right now. In the past couple of years, the Bulls have had their struggles, finishing the last five seasons with a winning percentage under .500. When the Bulls decided to trade Jimmy Butler in 2017, Chicago knew that they were heading into a rebuilding stage. The Bulls future pretty much depended on the progression of Zach Lavine. While Lavine was a solid scorer during each of his first three seasons with the Bulls, he took his game to another level last season. He averaged a career best 27.4 points per game last season. The Bulls will look to Lavine to lead the team to their first postseason appearance since 2017.