The Torch
Volume 1, Issue 1 Olympia Sports Mar 15, 2007
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Lady Spartans Lace Up Their Spikes
 By Darci Williams
9:03 AM, March 19, 2007



      The Olympia softball season has just begun. With numbers low for both the JV team and Varsity team, prospects are still looking good. Head Coach Al Toliver and Assistant Coach Jeff Gaither are repeatedly telling their girls they are impressed with the work that is getting done at practice and just cannot wait for them to get out on the dirt! With a young group of players, and no seniors, the team isn’t worried at all.
       Junior Katie Peek said, “Even though we are all young, we have all played together at one point in our softball career and if we play to our capability as a team we should be just fine.”
      The Olympia Lady Spartans will be led my sophomore pitcher Keri Leach, “I am a little nervous because I am only a sophomore and will be going against juniors and seniors, then I remember that I have a great defense behind me and have a lot of confidence in them.”
      The Lady Spartans will be starting off their season on March 20 against Metamora at home. The first game is always a tough one, but the team has no doubt in their minds that they will come through with a win!



  Olympia Varsity Softball Players         JV Softball Players:

  • Katie Peek                                                                 Jessie Whitfield

  • Emily England                                                             Chelsea Sherman

  • Darci Williams                                                             Abbie Hardesty

  • Christen Roberts                                                           Kenzi Graber

  • Lydia Schmidgall                                                            Katie Cross

  • Keri Leach                                                                    Tiffany Martin

  • Kara Usherwood                                                             Jordan Schaffer

  • Courtney Martin                                                              Abby Humbard

  • Hailley Hanning                                                                Tabitha Goembel

  • Taylor Hanes                                                                 Jaimee Goebel

  • Laura Canopy                                                                 Randi Ragland

  • Shelby Batterton

     
          The Olympia Girl’s soccer team, coached by Mike Hawk, has started practices as of March 3, 2007. However, many girls on the team have been conditioning for the season for weeks now. After losing only one senior this year, Olympia has had many new comers added to their already young team.
           Lacey Phelps, a 2 year goalie has made a huge impact on the team.” “I first got into soccer when Sam Williams got me to play my sophomore year,” she said. Sam Williams is another important part to this girl’s soccer team, this year is her 3 year starting as Sweeper.
          Other Olympia veteran returning players include: Rosie Litwiller, Jess Smith, Justina Nafziger, Lisa Behrens, Megan Brand, Rosa Perez, Erin Knowles and Tasha Rogers. Some of the new comers include, Jessica Fry, Leann Tammeus, Susan Davis, Ivy Craig and Kendra Litwiller. Lacey, Sam and other experienced players will have to take the new comers like Jessica and Leann under their wing and show them the ropes.
           “I’m really excited about this season,” said Sam Williams. “With the season we had last year we are all well aware we can win games. If we put our minds to it, we can have another improving season for Olympia Girls Soccer.”
           With teams like Central Catholic in their schedule, the team will have to stay determined throughout their season. Olympia girl’s soccer kicks off their season on March 20, at 5 pm at Orion High School.

    Local Motocross Extraordinaires

     By Jess Goujon
    posted 9:17 AM CST, Mar 16, 2007

          Spring is almost here so you know what that means. Yup, you guessed it, motocross season is just around the corner. For those of you that don’t know what motocross is, it is dirt bike and four-wheeler racing on a dirt track with many jumps and natural terrain. Olympia will not only be dominating the track and baseball fields this spring, but the motocross tracks as well.
          If you are looking for something to do on one of these beautiful spring weekends come out and watch some racing. Don’t worry, Oly has all of its bases covered, with Matt Guderjan racing the 125B class, Steve Kupferschmid racing the 125C class, and Jess Goujon and Brandon Davis both racing Quad B class.
          After great seasons from all four of us last season, we can count on bringing home plenty of hardware. We have been spending countless hours in the garage preparing our machines and unlike most student athletes, all four of us are self motivated and have been lifting and running all through the off season, training for the 07’ race season.
          I asked around for some of Olympia’s racers goals for the 07’ season. Matt Guderjan said “I want to win a few races and finish top 3 in state, braaaaaaaaap!” Steve Kupferschmid’s goals are slightly different, Steve hopes to “get dirty and put a block pass on Bri Stiles, the hottest motocrosser in the state.” Brandon Davis is moving up to B-class this season and is looking forward to more competition. He also plans on racing a few nationals.
          If you can make it out to watch a few races this season just look towards the front of the pack, I assure you, that’s where we’ll be.


          This month s female athlete of the month is Junior, Katie Peek. Katie plays on the girls varsity basketball team.
         Katie has been playing since elementary school when her dad got her into the sport. Katie says a goal for next year is to “make it out of regionals.” The highlight of Katie’s season she says was “getting a technical in the U-High game.”
         When Katie was asked for a quote she said, “Stay low and hit ‘em in the knees.”

         The male Athlete of the month is senior, Eric Kaufman. Eric participated on the varsity wrestling team at Olympia high school.
         Eric has been in wrestling at Olympia since 7th grade, after being cut from basketball. Eric says he stayed in wrestling so long “Because of my great inspiration to Biehl.” Eric said the highlight of his season was “making it to state.” When asked for a quote Eric said “What ya fittin’ to be doin,” Coach Cleary said, “The match that Eric wrestled for third place at sectionals was on of the most exciting matches I have seen at Olympia.”

         With Spring coming up that means one thing, Olympia Baseball season. The Spartans are looking forward to a strong year with a young team. With only three seniors on the team, the Spartans will look to the underclassmen for support.
         All eighteen guys have been practicing hard going in both the mornings and afternoons. The team has a lot of potential even with a lot of young gunners. The boys opened the season with a 9-3 victory at home on March 19th against Tremont. Coach Smith said, “The regular season will be interesting, but come the postseason, we’ll be in good shape because we have three strong pitchers and that’s all you need come tournament time. The regular season is different because there are weeks that the boys will play eight games in one span.”
         Hopefully, the Spartans can win the regular season conference again this year and take the tourney trophy home too. They have a lot of goals for the season and know they have to work hard to reach them. Two of their biggest goals are to win the conference and achieve twenty-five wins. Brian Foley said, “This team has a lot of potential and with hard work and good leadership we can be a contender.”
         The team consists of Jack Hainline, Brian Foley, Ben Trout, Clint Watkins, Colt Stroud, Jay and Jeff Freitag, Mitch Birky, Justin McCallister, Jacob Hadsall, Matt Frahm, Dusty and Logan Leesman, Matt Flynn, Jordan Gaither, Spencer Pratt, Matt Glenn and Andrew “Turk” Terhark.
         This spring, if you don’t have anything to do after school, go out to the baseball field and support your Spartan baseball.


         The girl’s high school track team is finally on its way to fame. The track season began February 20th, with practice everyday and weight lifting after practice on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. The team includes seniors: Emily Baldyga, Melissa Hall, Sarah Martin, and Grace Thomas; Juniors: Tasha Bruner, Megan Dial, Carly Dillenburg, Sarah Hallstein, Brittney Hendricks, and Becca Neblock; sophomores: Kristina Abbott, Jordan Brown, Cayla Conway, Stephanie Goebel, Laura Johnson, Aly Kennedy, and Annie Morrison; freshman: Crystal Nelson, Marissa Rader, Breanna Ragland, Kaitlin Walden, and Liz Wigginton.
         The team kicked off their indoor season Saturday, March 10th in Charleston. The meet was the 24th Annual Eastern Illinois University Girls Track Invitational. Teams there included: Harrisburg, Casey-Westfield, Warrensburg-Lath, Jamaica, Benton, Neoga, Marshall, Newton, Prairie Central, Central A & M, Lawrencewille, Eureka, Bloomington Central, Unity, Clinton, Porta-Petersburg, Bismark-Henning, Cumberland, Robinson, Vandalia, Pairs, St. Joseph, Trivalley, Gillespie, Urbana, Greenville, Altamont, Athens Wayne City, Villa Grover, Oakwood, Marist, Cowden-Herrick, and Beecher.
         The coach, Mike Neisler, believed “The team did really good. The 4x2 was probably the highlight, but everyone did what I thought they could do.” The 4x200 meter relay included Tasha Bruner, Jordan Brown, Marissa Rader, and Sarah Martin. The relay placed 6th in the meet with a time of 1:57.34.
         Good luck to the girls track team on their upcoming season.

         The 2007 softball season is almost underway. The Lady Spartans' first game is March 20th at home against Metamora. Outfield superstat Christen Roberts said, "She is looking forward to a good season and has very high expectations for this year." Lydia Schmidgall said, "We may look small but we can hit pretty good!"
         The team's motto this year is "Don't wait till next year." It means since none of them are seniors don’t wait till next year to be good, do it both years. Katie Peek says “She is anxious to see how they play after all this practice.”
          The Lady Spartans are a better-rounded team this year. They have a solid 12 players that are all very talented, instead of a select few “stars” like previous years.


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