Gallery by Heather BelcherĀ
Beckley – A month ago it was nearly decided that Beckley senior Olivia Ziolkowksi would be spending her next four years at Fairmont State. And then she pushed her signing back a week before postponing it indefinitely.
Turns out she found an offer she liked a little better and to the relief of her family she signed her National Letter of Intent on Monday, though the letterhead didn’t say Fairmont State.
It said Marshall.
Surrounded by teammates, friends and family the forward signed to continue her basketball career at Marshall University at the auditorium of Woodrow Wilson High School.
“Fairmont State has a really good program and I was thinking I was going to go there and then last second, actually last Friday I went and visited Marshall and absolutely fell in love with it,” Ziolkowski said. “The coaches and the girls were absolutely great. One my trainers from up in the (Kanawha) Valley sort of had a link but didn’t know the coach too well. He went up to him, scheduled a meeting and talked to him about me. (Marshall) Coach (Tony) Kemper really liked me.”
The signing marked a goal Ziolkowski’s worked towards most of her life in playing college basketball. Though she had some tough decisions to make.
An all-state volleyball player, Ziolkowski’s standout high school career presented her the option to choose between the two sports, but she’s known for awhile which direction she’s wanted to move towards.
“I sort of thought about playing college volleyball when last summer my AAU with basketball was a little bit slow,” Ziolkowski said. “With fifth-year seniors it was tough but after playing in the state tournament and in the North-South game I felt like I wanted to end my volleyball career at that.”
Ziolkowski, a 6-foot forward, played center this past year for the Flying Eagles to help fill a need but anticipates she’ll be making the change to guard at the next level.
“Coach Kemper’s wanting me to be more of a forward but I know at my height, I might be big for high school but I’m not very big for college,” Ziolkowski said. “I’ll probably have to get more into that guard standpoint and hopefully be able to play a little bit of both.”
That won’t be totally new for Ziolkowski.
While Beckley head coach Brian Nabors has always tried to put his team in position to win, he’s also done his best to accommodate his players and prepare them for the next level. As a standout former point guard at Charleston he’s realized what that takes and it’s why despite Ziolkowski’s size, he opted to play her more on the wing and the high post up until her senior year.
“This is very exciting and it’s exciting for her and her family,” Nabors said. “The main thing is she was able to find a school where they had her major and plus she could still play basketball for a Division I program. It’s a West Virginia school so now we have a young lady from Beckley, West Virginia representing Marshall University which is also great for our program so I’m very excited. Everybody won today. I’m just happy for her and her family and I know she’ll go to Marshall and do great things and be an asset to that program. We always knew she had potential to be a Division I basketball player. She came to work everyday, worked hard, showed leadership and got better every day. So sky’s the limit for her.”
While the basketball benefits of the move don’t hurt, they’re not the only aspects that influenced Ziolkowski’s decision to settle on Marshall. The school offered what she wanted on the academic side and hopefully provides a seamless transition as she looks beyond her undergrad years.
“I’m going to major in exercise science and minor in pre-med,” Ziolkowski said. “Hopefully I’ll go straight into Marshall’s medical school. Undergrad-wise they both had great exercise science programs but what really sold me on Marshall was their medical school that I could go straight into without having to transfer from Fairmont to WVU for medical school.”
The jump to a DI program as well as the career field Ziolkowski will be pursing present numerous challenges in what will be a strenuous pathway over the next decade. That’s nothing new for the senior who’s experienced anything but normalcy throughout her high school career.
Her sophomore season ended with a bittersweet win as Covid ended the state tournament after the Flying Eagles advanced to the Class AAA state semifinals. The disease was rampant throughout her junior year and she had bouts with her own sickness as a senior.
She plans to lean on the lessons learned from adversity and apply them in removing future obstacles out of her way.
“I think experiencing a lot in my high school career and having to be a big role model at a young age like sophomore and junior year, that’s going to be really important for me,” Ziolkowski said. “Where I’ll be a freshman I’ll be at the bottom of the totem pole again but just being able to go up there and show that I have heart and try my hardest, I think it will help me a lot.”
Email: tylerjackson@lootpress.com and follow on Twitter @tjack94