The past calendar year was unquestionably the busiest year in the history of high school and college sports in Illinois, as several sports were pushed back from the tail end of 2020 into 2021. Several sports competed twice in one calendar year for the first time ever, while schedules were played at as rapid a pace as ever.

And through all the flurry of the busiest sports year ever, several historic moments were achieved, making for not just the most jam-packed year ever, but also one of the most successful for area athletics.

<strong>No. 1: Prep sports makes full return with jam-packed calendar year</strong>

When the 2020-21 school year began, so did a very select number of fall sports. But once the fall wrapped up the cross country, golf, girls swim and dive and boys tennis seasons last November, without a state series, COVID-19 put the prep sports calendar back on hiatus.

That hiatus lasted until January, when the boys and girls basketball, boys swim and dive, boys and girls bowling and girls gymnastics seasons, without postseasons, were announced with less than two weeks notice, while competitive dance and cheerleading resumed with virtual competitions throughout the state level. And since then, the prep sports world has been in nonstop action.

The winter sports season immediately shifted into a makeshift spring season that featured the fall team sports that had been postponed — football, boys soccer and girls volleyball — were joined by boys and girls water polo and boys gymnastics.

As soon as that spring season ended, a summer season — the traditional spring sports plus wrestling — were held, with the traditional spring sports seeing out a state series.

The fall marked the return of the traditional calendar, as football, girls volleyball and boys soccer saw their quickest offseasons ever before starting back up in the fall, along with the other fall sports that took place in their rightful slot last autumn.

<strong>No. 2: Area sends two unbeaten teams to football state finals for first time ever; Wilmington wins Class 2A, Kankakee makes first-ever appearance in Class 5A</strong>

When the football season was given a playoff series for the first time since 2019 this fall, area teams more than made up for the year break from a postseason.

History was made on multiple levels, as two area teams — Wilmington in Class 2A and Kankakee in Class 5A — made it to the state finals with undefeated records, the first time two area schools made it to the championship season without a loss and just the second time ever two area teams made the championship game in the same season.

The Wildcats won the Class 2A title with a 24-7 win over Nashville, giving the Wildcats and head coach Jeff Reents their second state championship. Kankakee, in its first-ever football state championship game, was defeated 34-15 by Fenwick in the Class 5A title. On their historic journey, the Kays set a new school record with 14 wins this season, one in which they won their first-ever Southland Athletic Conference championship and had their first undefeated regular season since 1990.

<strong>No. 3: Wilmington native Brown makes history at Indianapolis 500</strong>

Caitlyn Brown quickly climbed the ranks of the automotive world after her graduation from the NASCAR Tehcnical Institute in 2018, and by this summer, she rose the ranks to a historic high.

Brown, a 2017 Wilmington graduate, became etched in auto racing’s history books forever when she took part in this year’s Indianapolis 500 as a member of the first all-women’s pit crew in the sport’s history.

Working on the Penske-powered Paretta Autosports team, Brown was part of an all-female pit crew for a team owned by a woman, Beth Paretta, for a car driven by a woman, Simona de Silvestro.

The team qualified for the 33rd and final spot for the race, and de Silvestro drove the team home to a 31st-place finish. Brown spent the rest of the season working for Team Penske, both in IndyCar and NASCAR and will be full-time on the IndyCar circuit next season.

<strong>No. 4: Hall-of-fame coaches move on</strong>

Several living legends in the local coaching ranks made the decisions to move on in their careers this year. Most notably, in prep football, Bishop McNamara coach Rich Zinanni retired after 47 years coaching the Fightin’ Irish and 50 years working at the school overall.

Zinanni compiled 371 career victories, third-most in state history, and made 38 playoff appearances, his final appearance coming this fall, where the Irish bowed out with a quarterfinal loss to Wilmington. The five-time state champion appeared in a total of nine state championship games while coaching his alma mater.

Joining Zinanni as Illinois High School Football Coaches Association Hall of Fame inductees to move on, Herscher’s Dan Wetzel also retired this year. He coached the past 22 seasons at his alma mater and three seasons at Kankakee, combining for 11 playoff appearances (nine at Herscher and two at Kankakee).

Wetzel’s former coworker at Herscher, boys basketball coach Ron Oloffson, resigned after the spring season with 498 wins as a Tiger. The Illinois Basketball Coaches Association Hall of Fame member didn’t stay out of coaching long, as he accepted the same position at Peotone just weeks after his departure from the school he called home as a coach, teacher and administrator since 1986.

At the women’s college basketball level, Kankakee Community College coach and IBCA Hall-of-Famer Donnie Denson retired after the Cavaliers finished their season last spring, a season in which he reached his 500th career victory.

<strong>No. 5: Three individuals join Kankakee relay as track state champions</strong>

After they weren’t able to compete in 2020 due to COVID-19, the area’s best competitors in track and field made up for the wait by collecting a half dozen gold medals at this summer’s IHSA Track and Field State Finals.

Bishop McNamara’s Tony Phillips kicked off the area’s dominant weekend by sweeping the 100-meter and 200-meter dashes in Class 1A. Watseka’s Jameson Cluver gave the area a third gold medal in the 400-meter race.

The next day, Herscher’s Drew Rogers, who was also named the Gatorade Illinois Boys Cross Country Runner of the Year this past year, won a pair of gold medals in the 1600-meter and 3200-meter distance runs. Kankakee’s 4x200-meter relay team wrapped up the area’s dominant weekend by taking gold as well.

<strong>No. 6: Bradley-Bourbonnais’ Zirbel sweeps state swim meet</strong>

Bradley-Bourbonnais freshman Savannah Zirbel has been dealt plenty of obstacles for the better part of her life, after a lawmower accident when she was just 2-years-old left her without her left leg and part of her left arm.

But Zirbel showed on a statewide scale just how persistent she is when she put together a dominant performances in the Athletes with Disabilities division at this fall’s IHSA Girls Swim and Dive State Finals.

She won the state championship in all four events this fall — the 50-yard freestyle,100-yard freestyle, 100-yard breaststroke and 200-yard freestyle.

<strong>No. 7: Several teams and individuals find postseason success</strong>

Aside from the area success on the gridiron, the track and in the pool, there were several other accolades earned by teams and individuals. Dozens of other boys track and field athletes advanced to state in the spring, a feat replicated by a handful of local golfers in the fall.

Dozens more student-athletes qualified individually for state in boys and girls track and field, boys and girls tennis and boys golf. In team sports, Milford’s volleyball team won its second-straight sectional, defeating Watseka in the sectional finals to do so.

The Bearcats and Warriors were joined by Beecher as volleyball teams that advanced to a sectional title game, something that was also accomplished by the Milford and Grant Park baseball teams, the Manteno softball team, the Herscher girls soccer team and the Beecher and Grant Park boys soccer teams, as the Bobcats defeated the Dragons for a sectional championship.

<strong>No. 8: Olivet continues dominance across the board</strong>

Like the high school level, college sports of all sizes saw their schedules significantly altered. The sports teams at both Olivet Nazarene University certainly made the most of the unique sports calendars.

At Olivet, the Tigers won their 13th Chicagoland Collegiate Athletic Conference All-Sports Cup, their 12th such award in a row. The All-Sports Cup is awarded to the CCAC school that displays the most success across all sports. Over the course of the 2020-21 season, the Tigers won regular season conference crowns in baseball, softball, men’s basketball, women’s volleyball, women’s golf and men’s and women’s indoor and outdoor track and field.

The Tigers also won tournament conference titles in baseball, which won the regular and postseason title for the first time in program history, women’s volleyball and women’s basketball. They also sent the baseball, softball, football, men’s and women’s basketball, men’s and women’s swimming and diving, men’s and women’s indoor and outdoor track and field and men’s and women’s cross country national championships and tournaments.

<strong>No. 9: Kankakee celebrates best fall in school history</strong>

The Kays’ football team made the most noise out of the school’s fall athletic program when they reached their first-ever state championship game, but all of the history the team made along their way to that first championship game was just a portion of the historic fall that happened at Kankakee this year.

The boys soccer team also had its best season ever, winning All-City and the Rivals Cup both for the first time ever, as well as clinching the program’s first-ever regional championship and Southland Athletic Conference title. The boys golf team had a similarly successful season, claiming its first All-City title since at least the turn of the century, and the girls volleyball team won a Southland Athletic Conference title as well.

And as the winter sports season has gotten underway, the boys bowling team has gotten the Kays off to a strong start with its first-ever All-City title.

<strong>No. 10: The end of the Sangamon Valley Conference</strong>

When Iroquois West joined the Sangamon Valley Conference in 1993, it marked the first time the area found itself associated with an IHSA conference that was first established back in 1948.

And after last school year, the Raiders were one of six local schools that were part of the last year of the SVC, joined by Central, Cissna Park, Dwight, Momence and Watseka.

The SVC disbanded after the school year, with Central and Momence now members of the River Valley Conference. Cissna Park, Iroquois West and Watseka went to the Vermillion Valley Conference and Dwight joined the Tri-County Conference. Central, Dwight and Momence all compete in the VVC for football.