KELSEYVILLE — Skoo is movin” on down the road.
Skoo is the nickname of Skyler Olsen, a member of Kelseyville High School”s graduating class of 2010 and the Lake County Record-Bee”s girls” Athlete of the Year based on her stellar 2009-10 senior season, one that included All-North Central League I North first-team honors in volleyball, basketball and softball.
The next stop for Olsen is Santa Rosa Junior College where she hopes to extend her basketball career under the tutelage of SRJC women”s basketball head coach Lacey Campbell. In fact, Olsen, is attending a summer basketball class at SRJC led by Campbell.
“It includes past, present and future players from the college,” Olsen said of the competitive camp, which is dominated by Sonoma County players. “There are about 12-15 players.”
Caitlin Andrus, who recently stepped down as Kelseyville High”s varsity girls” coach, paved the way for Olsen”s move to SRJC.
“She talked to Lacey about me and introduced me to her,” Olsen said.
To take that step up to junior college basketball, especially at a school with as solid a program as SRJC, is going to take a lot of hard work, according to Olsen, something she is no stranger to after competing in three sports at Kelseyville, all while maintaining a 4.0 GPA.
“Summers have always been like that for me,” Olsen said. “I”m either doing basketball summer leagues, camps, club ball or going to open gym.”
Hammering that point home, Olsen said she played in two basketball summer leagues in 2009.
As you might have guessed, Olsen is a basketball player first and foremost although she experienced much success in her other sports during her senior year. She led the Knights in kills as an outside/opposite hitter for coach Donelle McCallister”s squad in the fall of 2009, one that yielded a second-place finish in the NCL I North standings behind Willits. In softball, Olsen was the strong-armed shortstop for a Kelseyville club that finished second to Fort Bragg in league play.
“I always dreamed of having a good senior year,” Olsen said. “Some people try to map out their senior year and make it happen. I kind of just rolled with it and it happened on its own.”
On a scale of 1-10, Olsen gave her senior year an “eight” in terms of satisfaction.
She certainly experienced plenty of satisfaction on the court for the Knights, who finished 16-12 overall and qualified for the North Coast Section Division IV playoffs as an at-large team after tying Lower Lake for second place in the NCL I North strandings behind Willits. A shooting guard, she led Lake County in scoring at 16 points per game, including 23 3-point field goals. She was among team leaders in all statistical categories.
“We wanted to finish first, but there were moments when we could not score,” Olsen said of close league losses to Willits and Lower Lake.
Losing 40-38 to Lower Lake in the opening round of the NCL I North postseason tournament was a particularly tough defeat for the Knights and Olsen, who lost to a Trojans club coached by former Kelseyville skipper Jim Salmina.
“I didn”t talk to anybody for a full day,” Olsen said.
Olsen said her mood after a loss depends on how much effort her team put into the game.
“If we try our hardest, do our best and still lose, I”m OK with that,” Olsen said. “It”s the games where we know we didn”t put it all out there that hurt the most to lose.”
One of two team captains ? the other was Athlete of the Year runner-up Monique Santana ? Olsen said she always tried to keep the mood on the team upbeat, even if came at the expense of her coach, Andrus.
“One time I wrote something on her clipboard that she didn”t see until the end of practice,” Olsen said. “Sometimes she would say something (painfully obvious) in practice and I would joke about it with her.”
Don”t confuse Olsen”s playful antics with a lack of respect, because that”s just not the case. Between Andrus and Olsen, there is nothing but respect.
“I think because she”s closer to us in age than most coaches, she relates to me a lot better,” Olsen said. “I really admire Caitlin. “She teaches you a lot of fundamentals that you can use in college. She improved my game.”
“Skyler Olsen was huge part of our success this year,” Andrus said. “She is a fantastic athlete and she had to work hard for everything she accomplished. She is the epitome of the theory that hard work pays off.”
Olsen also had the leadership qualities Andrus was looking for this past season.
“Skyler was looked to as a leader from day one and once she accepted this role, she didn”t let her teammates or myself down,” Andrus said. “Her hard work, her desire to win, and her goofy humor made this last year a great one for me and for the team as a whole.”
Olsen hasn”t lived in Lake County all of her life but her roots and Kelseyville ties are firmly planted here. She was born in Santa Rosa and lived in Petaluma until age 12. The Olsen family — dad Marr, mom Kim and older brothers Gunner, 23, and Tanner, 21 — relocated to Lake County before Skyler”s seventh-grade year at Mountain Vista Middle School.
“My parents thought I would have a better opportunity to play more here because the schools aren”t as big,” Olsen said.
Gunner and Tanner also attended Kelseyville and played sports, and Marr coached football at the school at the junior varsity and varsity levels.
“My parents were very supportive,” Olsen said. “I always had at least one of them at my games, usually both. My dad kept me going at times and helped me improve.”
In her spare time, which there isn”t much of, Olsen enjoys hanging out with best friends Santana, Sarah Johnson and Ashley Mueller, all 2010 Kelseyville graduates.
“We call ourselves the ?Besties,”” Olsen said.
Two of her favorite television shows are House and Desperate Housewives (she”s certainly got the ever-changing storyline down pat in the latter), and her favorite music is country. She also enjoys films that make her laugh and make her scared.
A member of K-Corps at Kelseyville, Olsen”s favorite subjects at Kelseyville were history and English. She hasn”t settled on any type of major although she would like to attend Sonoma State University after graduating from SRJC. The Olsens own a house in Cotati, so she won”t have much of a commute to either school ? and you can”t beat the rent she won”t be paying.
Asked to describe herself as an athlete, Olsen said it”s really not so much about her as it is about the team.
“I would be nothing without my team and my teammates,” she said.
She certainly was everything with them.
