Photo by The Buffalo News
By Shelby Haven
Between basketball and soccer, Olivia Schmidt has it all. The high school senior has climbed her way to Western New York’s top 20 basketball players in the last year. Although she is a standout in basketball, Schmidt will be pursuing soccer in college.
After the team’s first scrimmage, Schmidt said she has high hopes for this season including a divisional sectional championship in her eyes.
The team looks to Schmidt as a leader and they all believe they can accomplish this goal. “We are gaining more and more experience and confidence,” she said, hoping that this will help them win.
In interviews with her teammates, they agreed that Schmidt is a valuable member of the squad. “She sets up a lot of the good plays for us and she’s a really great teammate,” one said.
With this first scrimmage out of the way, they tried a lot of new plays and tactics to get ready for the season ahead. While some plays worked and others didn’t, Coach Dan Parker is confident about the season.
He said “anytime you get a player like Olivia it’s a special opportunity to coach and it opens up a wide variety of plays that she brings to the table.” She has been able to open up some new stuff for the team and has helped them all performance-wise.
Coach Parker went on to say that Schmidt is one or two in every offensive category, and between her skill set and the team, his job is made easy. Schmidt has gone on to be the second 1,000-point scorer at Holland and she also had the chance to play with Candis Kapuscinski (the other 1,000 point scorer), which helped her along the way.
Parker feels Schmidt could leave high school with 2,000 points.
Schmidt has been playing varsity since around seventh grade, and Parker says she has been a major contributor since the day she started. Even though she is going to play soccer for college Parker says “honestly she could walk on to a lot of places and end up being a premium player for them. She could play any place that would have her”.
With the way the teaching style is at Holland, the girls can choose their position and Coach Parker said she thrives with it. Schmidt would rather move the ball around, find the open person and get the ball to the basket instead of trying to make the point herself. Schmidt would rather get the ball to a person with a better shot than struggle and not make her own shoot, which truly makes a good player – a team player.
Parker believes that Schmidt is going to end up with 2,000 points on accident just because she is good about getting the ball to others and others are good about getting the ball to her. The group as a whole really plays into each other and tries hard to get the ball where it needs to be. One big thing the team and Schmidt will work on this year is playing with aggression and with that, hopefully will come a championship.
WNY high school hoops 15-16 