Few in Number, Tecumseh Pursuing Sizable Success with Zajacs Setting Pace
By
Doug Donnelly
Special for MHSAA.com
December 5, 2023
TECUMSEH – First, the good news: Nearly everyone on the Tecumseh girls basketball team has aspirations to play college basketball – and several of them at a very high level.
Now, the twist: There are only eight girls in the entire program.
Tecumseh head coach Kristy Zajac, starting her seventh season, is unfazed by the lack of numbers. Tecumseh will field just a varsity team this season but should contend for a Southeastern Conference White championship and pursue a deep playoff run as well.
“This is a great group of girls,” Zajac said. “At least six or seven of them want to play college basketball. The basketball IQ is so much higher than we have had in the past. We’ve never had a full team of basketball-first kids.”
Zajac said that dynamic has changed practices and the approach on the court.
“We do a lot more high-level skill stuff and high-level thinking,” she said. “We do more read-and-react stuff where they have to play on the fly, which makes us harder to scout. We want to try and give the kids a chance to use that basketball IQ and make opportunities for themselves on the floor so they can score without having to run a set play.”
The list of college prospects starts with her daughter, 6-foot-2 junior Alli Zajac. She holds about 15 Division I offers, and the list seems to grow daily.
She’s been receiving recruiting attention since before she played a game in high school. As a freshman, she was the Lenawee County Player of the Year and has been all-state both of her first two seasons. Last winter, she scored 433 points as Tecumseh went 20-5.
Her sister, Addi Zajac, hasn’t played a varsity game yet but has received a lot of attention as well as a college prospect after several great years of travel ball. She’s 6-foot and a true center.
“She wears a size 14 shoe,” Zajac said. “We are hoping next year she is 6-3 or 6-4. She has such a strong body; I don’t know if I’ve ever seen anyone that strong at her age. She can push people around.”
The sisters are very different types of players. They also are extremely competitive, as witnessed when they play 1-on-1 at home.
“It usually ends in a fistfight,” Zajac said. “They are both very competitive.”
The team is loaded with more talent than just the Zajac sisters.
Sophomore Makayla Schlorf made 28 3-pointers last season, and sophomore Chloe Bollinger made 26. Junior Ashlyn Moorhead averaged just under double figures in scoring and averaged 3.7 assists a game last year. Junior Lauren Kilbarger also is back from last season and joined by newcomers Faith Wiedyk, a junior, sophomore Sophia Torres and freshman Amaria Brown.
Maddie VanBlack is another travel ball veteran but is out this season due to tearing an ACL.
Tecumseh athletic director Jon Zajac – Kristy’s husband – said it is disappointing Tecumseh won’t field a junior varsity team this year. He said kids playing travel ball in other sports, along with the youth of the current team, are factors.
“It is frustrating,” he said. “Hopefully this is the only year for that.”
Kristy (Maska) Zajac grew up near Tecumseh in Britton, played four years on the varsity and scored more than 1,800 career points under coach Bart Bartels, now an assistant on her staff. She played at Eastern Michigan University, where she was one of the top scorers in school history. Jon Zajac, played at EMU and professionally overseas.
The entire family is crazy about basketball. In addition to Alli and Addi, son Ryder played four years at Tecumseh before heading off to college to play football, and the youngest in the family, Avery, is a budding star in her own right.
“There were a few travel games this year where my team was short on numbers and Avery got to play with Addi and Alli,” Kristy Zajac said. “That was cool to see. She held her own. She won’t get to play with Alli in high school (Avery is in seventh grade), but she’ll get two years with Addi. I got to play with my sister, and I wouldn’t trade that time for anything.”
Jon Zajac stops by practice now and then to coach as well. He and Kristy coach Avery’s travel team.
“He is a great person to have as part of the program,” Kristy Zajac said of her husband. “Anytime I can get him to help with the post players and with the girls is great. He’s a huge help.”
The family often schedules trips around basketball and is seemingly always pulled in multiple directions as the three girls compete at various levels.
“It’s pretty much basketball all day, every day,” Zajac said. “It’s fun to see how the kids enjoy it and love the game.”
Tecumseh, which has won a combined 39 games over the past two seasons, has loaded up its schedule, playing a collection of nonconference teams that made deep tournament runs and won conference championships last season. Tecumseh plays in the Icebreaker event at Ypsilanti Arbor Prep against Detroit Country Day on Saturday and also faces Temperance-Bedford (23-1 last season), reigning Division 3 runner-up Blissfield and Grand Blanc.
Without a senior on the team and no JV squad, Tecumseh will play essentially this group for the next 50 or more games. It’s a two-year window with virtually the same team.
“We’re doing what we can to win this year,” Zajac said. “We want this year to be super successful. We are just taking it one game at a time and going from there. We want to keep building and getting better every day, every game. Hopefully by the end of next year, we’ll be where we need to be.”
Doug Donnelly has served as a sports and news reporter and city editor over 25 years, writing for the Daily Chief-Union in Upper Sandusky, Ohio from 1992-1995, the Monroe Evening News from 1995-2012 and the Adrian Daily Telegram since 2013. He's also written a book on high school basketball in Monroe County and compiles record books for various schools in southeast Michigan. E-mail him at [email protected] with story ideas for Jackson, Washtenaw, Hillsdale, Lenawee and Monroe counties.
PHOTOS (Top) Tecumseh’s Alli Zajac makes her move toward the lane last season against Adrian. (Middle) Kristy Zajac coaches her team, which finished 20-5 in 2022-23. (Photos by Deloris Clark-Osborne/Adrian Daily Telegram.)
Freeland Finds Way to Season's Last Day
March 22, 2019
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
GRAND RAPIDS – Freeland was doubled up in rebounding, shot 14 fewer free throws and had one more turnover than Hamilton during Friday’s first Division 2 Semifinal at Van Noord Arena.
But the Falcons won out in experience and accuracy – and those made the differences in earning their first MHSAA championship game berth since winning the Class C title in 1998.
Hitting 60 percent of its shots during the second half, and nearly half of its 3-pointers for the game, Freeland was able to come back from a double-digit second-half deficit and down previously-unbeaten Hamilton 71-66.
The Falcons trailed from the 4-minute mark of the second quarter until 5:13 remained in the game. But they were never out, even as Hamilton 6-foot-2 sophomore A.J. Ediger went for 33 points and 17 rebounds while controlling the paint most of the game.
“We always said we would go as far as we can, go out with a bang,” said Alyssa Argyle, who with Autumn Kloha and Lily Beyer will finish her fourth varsity season in Saturday’s Division 2 Final.
“We’ve always had that mentality to finish out hard and not give up.”
That came in especially handy as the Falcons (24-2) played in their second Semifinal in three seasons.
Hamilton (25-1) was playing in its first ever, adding to the best two-year run in program history. And in addition to Ediger’s post power and a team 42-20 scoring advantage in the paint, the Hawkeyes made 9-of-13 shots from the floor during the second quarter to turn a one-point deficit into an eight-point halftime lead.
But that was nothing new for the Falcons. They also had trailed at halftime in both Regional games and the Quarterfinal.
“I can’t say enough about these three girls and this team,” Freeland coach Tom Zolinski said, referring to his four-year seniors. “They have won in their careers 92 games, which is unbelievable, and they just wouldn’t let it happen tonight.
“We fell down quite a bit. We were undersized. Everything was against us. The crowd was huge for them. And (we) did it.”
Hawkeyes senior guard Bria Schrotenboer put her team ahead 34-23 with a free throw 58 seconds into the third quarter. They led by at least 11 as late as 2:48 to go in the period.
But over the next 5½ minutes, Freeland rambled through a 24-11 run with junior Kadyn Blanchard sinking 10 points and Beyer seven.
“Obviously that little run there where they caught fire, that’s what we saw from them every single game we’ve seen,” Hamilton coach Dan VanHekken said. “We knew they’d been down a few games here at halftime and didn’t quit. They again replicated that tonight. They’ve got a lot of heart and didn’t give up. They don’t get rattled. … Their body language, they were not rattled.”
The teams traded leads one more time before Argyle put Freeland ahead for good with a 3-pointer with 4:30 left.
“We worked so hard in the fourth quarter. We came back, and we had our heart in the game,” Kloha said. “And we knew we were down in the first half, but at halftime we needed to pick it up and keep our heads up, and we came back. And we came back strong, and we stayed together as a team.”
Argyle also scored her 1,000th career point during the fourth quarter and finished with 17 on the night. Blanchard led with 23 points, seven rebounds and four steals, and Beyer added 13 points.
Schrotenboer added 13 points and six rebounds, and senior guard Riki Ediger had nine points, eight rebounds, eight assists and five steals.
Hamilton capped a three-year run with a combined 71-5 record, also making its first Quarterfinal in 2018.
“Especially just being a four-year senior, I’ve been playing with these girls a long time,” Schrotenboer said. “It’s sad to go out this way, but we had the best record Hamilton ever had, and I will remember that forever.”
PHOTOS: (Top) Freeland’s Autumn Kloha works to get past Hamilton’s Riki Ediger during Friday’s Division 2 Semifinal at Van Noord Arena. (Middle) Hamilton’s A.J. Ediger gets up a shot on the way to scoring 33 points.