John Lindblom — Special to the Record-Bee
FORT KENT, Maine — Geographically speaking, the story of Skyler Olsen”s ascension into four-year college basketball is a far-fetched one, but not from an athletic and academic point of view. The former three-sport Kelseyville High School standout, who was a 4.0 student at Kelseyville, definitely has the talent and the intelligence.
That”s why she was awarded a combined academic/athletic scholarship at her distant college of choice — the University of Maine-Fort Kent, which is at the northeastern tip of Maine, 3,000 miles away from her hometown.
Her presence there is the result of some aggressive recruiting by the 1,300-student university. She moves to Maine as a junior eligibility-wise after being scouted while playing for the highly successful Santa Rosa Junior College program.
“I”d never been to Maine before,” Olsen said during a long-distance phone call. “But I looked up the school and saw that they do well in basketball.”
The Bengals certainly liked what they saw while recruiting Olsen, who at Kelseyville earned All-North Central League I first-team honors during her senior year in volleyball (outside/opposite hitter), basketball (shooting guard who was among team leaders in rebounds, assists and steals), and softball (shortstop). All three of those teams contended for league championships and reached the playoffs.
Maine-Fort Kent, a private school playing at the NAIA level, was one of two four-year colleges that contacted Olsen. Considering the other college she talked to was York College on the dreary Nebraska plain, her choice makes a lot of sense.
“It was a unique situation with her,” said Bradley Holabird, head women”s basketball coach at Fort Kent. “We knew she was coming from a great basketball program. Santa Rosa is a very competitive program and anybody who could contribute athletically there would be successful here on our level.”
Olsen was recruited as a “two (shooting) guard,” which means Holabird sees her as prospectively the best shooter on this coming season”s Bengals team.
“We”ve seen films on her, a couple of games at the foul line, on defense and taking the ball to the rack. She does that very well,” he said. “She is aggressive and with our style of play she”ll fit in very well. We like to recruit on the academic and family side of things. We”re just happy she”s here and ready for the season”s starting.
“She will definitely be a two guard,” Holabird added. “She”s not the tallest (5-foot-7), but she”ll fill a very big role for us as a two guard, and coming from Santa Rosa (she has) intelligence on the court. Playing competitively at Santa Rosa for two years as she did, that”s going to speak volumes.”
Holabird is optimistic about the coming basketball season for the Bengals. This past season the team competed in the USCAA (U.S. College Athletic Association) tournament in Uniontown, Pa. for the first time in the program”s history, losing to the tournament”s eventual national champion, Daemen of Amherst, New York.
Olsen averaged a Lake County-best 16 points a game at Kelseyville during her senior season (2009-10), but her numbers were not impressive at Santa Rosa because of a style of play where players are substituted five at a time on the court throughout a game, the same way hockey teams regularly replace entire lines.
“There was no drop-off,” Olsen said of the whole-unit substituting system at SRCC. “Everyone was like really good.”
Olsen was on the Maine-Fort Kent campus for only a few days when she was asked to try out for the Bengals” volleyball team.
“They are short of players, so they wanted me to try out for the team,” she said. “I haven”t played in three years so I don”t know how good I am now. I”ve never played volleyball competitively in college before.”
Holabird confided that she made the team.
Olsen is a third-generation Kelseyville High School graduate in her family. Her two brothers, Gunner and Tanner, also were solid Kelseyville athletes.
She said that so far she hasn”t gotten homesick. The fact that there are four other California recruits on the Maine-Fort Kent team, including one she played against at Santa Rosa, should help a bit.
“California was very good to us this year,” said Holabird. “I”m looking for this group to come in and contribute accordingly.”
Olsen makes no secret of the fact that she is aiming at putting up some significant numbers for Maine-Fort Kent (her highest total for a single game was in the 30s at Kelseyville).
“I want to win and I want to improve my shot,” she said. “But I want to do stuff for my team before I do it for myself.”
She is honest also in her aspirations for continuing to play basketball after her two years at the four-year college are complete.
“At this point I have no idea about that,” she said. “I know people who have (played beyond college), but I don”t know if my skills are up to that level. It”s in the realm of possibility if my skills will take me higher.”
