Here Comes Shelby Girls' Basketball

Shelby's Sydney Czurak has the Tigers poised
to return to the Breslin Center. (Photo by Andy Roberts)

The Shelby Tigers' girls basketball team was somewhat lightly regarded headed into the postseason this year. They weren't ranked in the state AP poll after splitting the West Michigan Conference title with Oakridge and came into the regionals as heavy underdog to #5 Pine River in the semis. The Bucks had only lost once going into the tournament, and Shelby had had to edge out Holton before winning a Montague district that was pretty light on top-notch talent.

However, Shelby is showing that when your best player is an athletic girl who's also taller than everybody, the sky is the limit.

That title belongs to Sydney Czurak, a 6'1" senior forward and all-state candidate headed to D-II Wayne State University this fall to play basketball and, I believe, volleyball. She will major in double-doubles at the school.

Ok, that last part was a wisecrack, but she might as well take it to heart because points and rebounds — and lots of them — are what she provides to the Tigers, who upset Pine River 58-56 on Tuesday and clobbered #7 Traverse City St. Francis 55-35 last night. They move on to the state quarterfinals in Petoskey, where they'll have a date with Houghton, also ranked #7. The Gremlins came out of the Marquette/Inconveniently Located Upper Peninsula Schools regional by smearing Ishpeming.

Czurak had 17 points and 18 boards, not to mention four blocked shots and four assists, in a virtuoso performance against the Gladiators Friday night. Fellow senior Abby Rodriguez, a brilliantly efficient point guard, had 17 points and seven assists.

The Tigers are coached by Sarah Wolting, daughter of longtime boys' coach Rick Zoulek. (Zoulek also coached the girls until the state of Michigan did the sensible thing and stopped playing girls' basketball in the fall.) Like her dad, Wolting looks to have built a consistent program that almost always exceeds their talent level on the court. It remains to be seen what the future holds for Shelby after winning their first district title since '04 this year, but that's not a concern of the Tigers' right now. Their concern is returning to the Breslin Center for the final four.

"It's been 15 years since I went to the semis as a player at Shelby. We’re striving to get back to Breslin." - Wolting

Shelby is a strong, confident bunch that just might do it. Wolting marveled at how loose her team was heading into Thursday's regional final contest. The Tigers didn't look it in the first quarter, when the score was 2-2 through six minutes, but they completely took over the remainder of the game. There's little that can be said to sugarcoat it — Shelby made St. Francis look very, very bad at times. Czurak was simply larger and better than everyone else on the court. The Tigers dispatched St. Francis as if they were a low-level WMC opponent and not a top-10 ranked regional finalist.

Wolting sounded like she knew going in that her team was going to control the Gladiators too, saying, "I didn’t necessarily think we’d win by 20, but I felt very confident after Tuesday. I knew my girls were ready to play."

I don't know much of anything about Houghton, Shelby's next opponent — the U.P. is a mysterious land of wonderment to me, something that perhaps wouldn't be the case if I hadn't had to miss Shelby football's quarterfinal game at Negaunee last November because of a wedding — but their competition this year was entirely U.P. teams, and the level of play up there, by all accounts, is not nearly as high as in the West Michigan region. Houghton has only 2 losses, but they were to L'Anse and Marquette, defeats that the Gremlins avenged but still don't look good. I'd expect Shelby to beat Houghton and go to the Breslin Center for the semifinals, where either Delton Kellogg or Saginaw Nouvel Catholic, both very formidable opponents, would be waiting.

If so, the Tigers will have put two sports teams into the state semis this year along with the boys' basketball run that is to be determined. Heck of a year for Shelby's athletic program.