Winona Cotter star says yes to Division I basketball offer
Apr. 17—WINONA — This past summer, Winona Cotter basketball star Clarissa Sauer was invited to Eastern Illinois University's Elite Camp.
The invitation came from someone with the same roots as her, Winona native Matt Bollant. The 53-year-old Bollant is a women's basketball coaching lifer, a head man the last 21 years. That includes five seasons at the University of Illinois and the last six at Eastern Illinois.
With all of that experience behind him, Bollant knows talent when he sees it. So when he laid eyes on Sauer at the Elite Camp, he was struck. And then when he saw her again in January, playing in the Winona State University Tournament, he was struck again.
That second impression was strong enough that on Bollant's ride back to Eastern Illinois home base Charleston, Ill., he couldn't hold back any more. He got on the phone and offered the 5-foot-11 Sauer a scholarship to play for him.
"When he extended that offer, I was very shocked," Sauer, a junior at Cotter, said. "I"d also been shocked when I saw him in the stands at our game. After the game, he told me how impressed he was with my play and that he'd like to call me on his ride home."
That call came, it being the first and so far only Division I offer that Sauer has received.
Six weeks later, still amazed at the offer, Sauer made a second trip to Eastern Illinois, a chance to meet the players, see the campus and interact more with the coaches.
Just before leaving, she gave Bollant the answer he'd been hoping for. She decided then that she would be an Eastern Illinois Panther beginning in the fall of 2026.
Sauer, a versatile, fast and strong 5-foot-10 guard/forward who averaged 22 points, 7 rebounds, 3 assists and 4 steals this past season, is realizing a dream. Though verbal commitments are non-binding, she can't imagine herself heading anywhere but Eastern Illinois. She's comfortable with everything about its basketball program, and especially its head coach, fellow former Winonan Bollant.
"As a coach and a person, I really like him," Sauer said of Bollant, who led the Panthers to a 14-18 record this season but was a combined 37-22 the two years prior. "He is really easy going and made me feel that I could play under him. And he's not just a basketball coach. He wants to be involved in all aspects of your life."
Sauer was also pleased with her interactions with the team.
"They were welcoming," she said. "I felt like I could fit in easily."
In Sauer, Eastern Illinois is getting an all-around athlete. She does three sports at Cotter — volleyball, basketball and track-and-field, a high-end sprinter in the latter.
But it's basketball where she excels most. A first-team choice on the Post Bulletin All-Area Team this past year, Sauer has skyrocketed in showing her stuff the past three seasons. She started off as mainly a rebounder as a freshman, then took on more of a scoring load as a sophomore, satisfying a request from Hall of Fame Cotter coach Pat Bowlin. Then, this past year, she took things up to another level.
Bowlin loves Sauer's game, and while he says she's going to have to take a leap with her ball handling to play Division I basketball, he believes she can compete at that level.
He also knows she'll put in the time to get to that standard. She is a worker and a girl who is playing AAU basketball for the first time this offseason.
"Clarissa is someone who has just exploded onto the scene," Bowlin said. "She still has a ways to go and she knows that. But she is a sponge and an incredibly hard worker. And I'm anxious to see where she progresses from her AAU experience."
