'The success all over': Why Illini Bluffs girls compete for titles in 3 sports every year

As if Annabelle Fortin wasn’t busy enough with softball season, the Illini Bluffs senior decided to take a five-hour drive to play volleyball.

After last Friday’s on-the-diamond victory, Fortin hopped in a car the following morning for a club volleyball tournament in Louisville, Ky. She could have spent her Saturday catching up on sleep or just giving herself a break.

So, why didn’t the Heartland College volleyball signee have a relaxing weekend?

“Honestly, I just love sports,” Fortin said, “I feel like I always have since I’ve been little. Knowing that I had an opportunity to go play the sport that I love – volleyball – I couldn’t imagine ever passing that up.

“I feel like if I don’t have practice or a game every day then I’m being lazy because I’m just so used to playing all the time.”

This is just one of the many recent examples of Illini Bluffs female athletes going above and beyond to achieve personal and team success.

In fact, Illini Bluffs girls athletics have experienced near unparalleled heights over the last five years. Since 2019, IB volleyball, girls basketball and softball have played for a combined six Class 1A state championships, winning back-to-back softball titles in 2021 and 2022.

Softball is now making a push to play in a fifth successive state title game just four months removed from basketball taking a state runner-up finish.

What's the secret behind this run from this school of 252 students in Glasford, located just 18 miles west of Peoria?

A sampling of those in and around the athletic program – both now and in the past – produced a variety of opinions.

‘They don’t want to go home’

Many years ago, three-sport athletes – in small schools, especially – were fairly common. But for a while now, specialization has made those fall, winter and spring sports participants fewer and fewer.

Illini Bluffs, though, maintains a steady batch of that dying breed of athletes, with girls playing two or three sports.

“What’s amazing to me about all this is the success all over,” IB athletics director Steve Schafer said. “… For a school to excel at three (sports) at the same time is kind of mind-boggling, so to speak.”

Schafer has been the Tigers' AD for 11 years, spending many years before and during his current tenure coaching boys basketball. His wife, Jen Schafer, has coached several IESA state champion softball and volleyball teams at Illini Bluffs Middle School.

In Steve Schafer’s mind, the 2019 volleyball team – and their work ethic dating back to their junior high days – laid the foundation for how the athletes currently walking the IB halls carry themselves.

With that squad, which went 40-2 and was the ’19 1A state runner-up, it was creating a culture of extra work and working hard.

More than anything, it was the athletes’ desire to get better and perfect their crafts. Girls would stay an hour or more after practice, getting the guidance of coaches willing to help the players achieve their goals.

Supportive coaches have gone a long way in developing a half-decade of gym rats at Illini Bluffs.

“Obviously, I feel like we have really good coaches that are willing to put in the time, generally,” Steve Schafer said.

“We want more hits for volleyball,” Steve Schafer added of what he heard from the girls coaches about their respective teams. “We want groundballs for softball. We want more shots for basketball.

“They don’t want to go home. … If it was in-season they practiced on Saturday and wanted to practice on Saturday.”

‘We’ve been very lucky’

Steve Bishop may not be a name familiar to those outside of the Illini Bluffs community. The former IB AD was the varsity baseball coach for eight seasons in the early 2000s along with being an assistant volleyball and softball coach under the legendary Nancy Meyer.

His coaching style and ability to push players to constantly work on improving gets a lot of credit for the winning culture.

“I’m going to give all the credit to the kids,” Bishop said. “That makes me feel good that some people around here said I had a part of it, which really makes me feel good, but truly it was the kids. All of the kids made me, and I feel like all the (staff), better coaches because they wanted to get better.

“Our kids never wanted to take any time off.”

He says there were explanations why they did every specific drill, and those athletes would be encouraged to inquire about how they were honing their fundamentals.

“I’m not doing things just to do things,” Bishop said. “Every drill or everything that we did had a reason and a benefit for what we were trying to do at that time. … Those kids would make it really, really difficult to be a lazy coach.”

Meyer echoes a lot of what Bishop says regarding the ambition of her former athletes.

“We’ve been very fortunate here,” Meyer said, “that we’ve had kids who are committed to performing at the highest level who’ve done the extra work outside of school, playing club volleyball, playing travel softball.

“We’ve been very lucky.”

In 25 seasons as the softball coach, Meyer won 500 games including 16 regionals, four sectionals and three state trophies, including the 2019 Class 1A runner-up finish. Her 28-year volleyball career culminated with that 2019 Class 1A state runner-up and 440 victories.

She’s passed the torch to Lindsey Lox, who's guided the last three softball teams to state title games, including back-to-back crowns in 2021 and 2022 with 62 total wins.

“Once you’re successful,” Meyer said, “it kind of carries over. Every team wants to step up and do well also.”

'I love coaching girls'

Four seasons into his varsity girls basketball coaching tenure, Jim Belville found himself at the pinnacle of the high school game, playing for a state championship this past March. Sure, he had led IB to the IESA state finals, but this time it was different.

This was on the state’s biggest stage with his program on full display.

“I love coaching girls,” said Belville, who spent the 11 seasons after Bishop as the Tigers baseball coach. “They are so much more into listening and being coachable. … They’re mad at me if I cancel practice half the time.”

Competition is very healthy between the IB girls athletes. Belville sees it daily in practices and during games.

Fortin says it stems from everyone growing up together and having played with each other since they were very little.

“You’re spending time getting better,” she said, “whether that’s individually or as a team. … That’s always just pushed us to be the best because as much as we love each other, we all are super competitive. We all love to win.

“… It’s been working for us for a couple of years, so I feel like there’s no letting up from us. We all know what it takes to win and we’re all in agreement that we have to do whatever we can to get there.”

When asked to pinpoint what exactly is the main distinction between the girls and boys athletes at IB; Belville couldn't do it.

“It’s something,” he said with a laugh. “I really have no idea what it is, but it’s there and it’s noticeable. It’s all I really can say. There is a difference, but I am not really 100% sure what the heck it is.”

‘Amazing to end it’

Stories about the 2019 volleyball team’s tireless work ethic have been shared time and time again. IB coaches constantly are relaying tales about the new standard set by this group.

Doing the work and wanting to embrace what that team had built was important to Fortin.

“They were definitely role models to us,” she said, noting the memory of the incredible atmosphere of watching those 2019 state finals, “because of all the success they’ve had.”

Fortin says she remembers thinking "this would be so cool to get back here (at state) one day." Little did she know that her return trip to state five years later would come playing basketball, not volleyball.

However, that didn’t matter to Fortin one bit.

“That was a full-circle moment,” she said.

Fortin has roughly three weeks of the softball regular season remaining. Illini Bluffs is again one of Class 1A’s top teams, posting a 9-0 record as of Monday and could very likely make a run at another Class 1A state championship appearance.

This would be Fortin’s second state title game since March and fourth in softball.

“Going there the second time and the third time for softball,” she said, “it’s like, ‘Oh yeah, we’ve been here before. Doing it again. We know what’s going to happen.’

“(Playing in another state title) would honestly be so unreal. That’s my last high school sport at Illini Bluffs and to end it in a state championship would be the best thing I could ask for. … It would just be amazing to end it that way.”

Adam Duvall is a Journal Star sports reporter. Email him at aduvall@pjstar.com. Follow him on Twitter @AdamDuvall.

This article originally appeared on Journal Star: Why Illini Bluffs girls compete for titles in three sports every year