Looking back and ahead: Prairie State Conference

Throughout the next week we will take a look back at the conferences in southern Illinois and  the results of the 2017-2018 season. We will look at the standings and the All Conference/Top players that will return for the 2018-2019 season. we will share a little insight and then later on in the summer/fall we will get more in depth by team in a full preview of next season.

The next conference is the Prairie State Conference. The standings for last year were

1. Alton Marquette 3-1

2. Nokomis 3-1

3. Metro East Lutheran 2-2

4. Bunker Hill 2-2

5. East Alton Wood River 0-4

The conference ended in a tie last year when Metro East Lutheran pulled off the upset at Alton Marquette to drop them to 3-1. Because of the head to head victory over Nokomis the Explorers won the tie breaker in a competitive conference. The conference line up has changed many times through out the years including Mt Olive not having a team in 2017-2018 to defend their title. Mt. Olive joined Staunton as a co-op last year due to numbers being down after the class of 2017 graduated.

With graduation and the transfer of Ellen Schulte from MELHS not one first team all conference player will return for 2018-2019. The top players returning are:

• Sami Kasting Senior guard MELHS
• Destiny Williams Junior guard MELHS
• Payton Connors Senior guard Alton Marquette
• Kiley Kirchner Sophomore guard Alton Marquette
• Kayla Brantley Junior guard EAWR
• Brylie Chrismann Junior guard Bunker Hill
• Macee Eisenbarth Junior guard Nokomis
• Taylor Bradley Senior forward MELHS

In addition to these players the team from Father McGivney will join the conference which adds some talent to the league. Standouts to watch out for from McGivney are:

• Anna McKee Sophomore guard
• Madison Webb Junior forward

The conference should be wide open with Marquette and Nokomis graduating all of their top players and MELHS losing their top player to a transfer. Coach Green at Marquette is looking to reload and maintain the standards set in a 20 win season that ended in a Regional crown. MELHS is certainly not looking to give up on their season because of the loss of Schulte and EAWR played mostly younger players to attempt to build for the future. All of that together with the addition of Father McGivney lends itself to an unpredictable conference. We will go into further depth with each team later in the summer/early fall and make a few predictions.