Schahczinski meant everything to Lady Elks
By Chris Bennett
Correspondent
Erin Schahczinski is going to take the number 1,000 to her grave.
“It still bothers me,” Schahczinski said. “At the end of my last game, I just started crying, because I knew if I had one more game it would have happened, or if I had scored one more point in every game I would have had it.”
Schahczinski ended her career with 982 points scored in an Elkhorn Area High School girls basketball uniform. She wanted 1,000. She would have been just the second girls basketball player in Elkhorn history to accomplish the feat.
“It still bothers me,” Schahczinski said. “That was always the goal, and the whole season, (Elks coach Jim) Henriott would always let me know where I was.”
She’d rather have 18 points, but the best The Elkhorn Independent can do is name Schahczinski, tricky-to-type last name and all, its 2014 Female Athlete of the Year.
Schahczinski graduated from Elkhorn Area High School in 2014 and is a freshman at Edgewood College in Madison. She is majoring in Business and is on the womens basketball team.
As an Elkhorn senior, Schahczinski averaged 15.3 points and 6.7 rebounds per game. Henriott said “pretty much everything” when asked what Schaczinski meant to the program.
“She played everywhere we needed her to play,” Henriott said. “We asked her to play inside for a while during the season, and she did that without any problem.”
Henriott said Schahczinski played as a shooter, handled the ball and led Elkhorn in every statistical category except rebounding.
“She just meant everything to us,” Henriott said, She was obviously our go-to person. There were a lot of nights, when we did win games that we went as she went.”
Schahczinski also earned First Team All-Southern Lakes Conference honors for the second straight season. She won the Elks Efficiency Award, given to the player with the greatest statistical impact on the Elks’ fortunes through the course of the season.
Schahczinski, a four-year member of the Elkhorn varsity, was named the Elks Most Valuable Player for the 2013-14 season. She also earned First Team All-Walworth County honors.
Schahczinski played club basketball with the Oconomowoc-based Wisconsin Lakers since eighth grade, and competed on one of the Lakers’ top traveling teams.
Schahczinki recalled playing volleyball at Elkhorn and being told by the coach to stop shooting volleyballs in the basketball nets during practice.
Schahczinski, who said there is no basketball offseason for her, realized her considerable talent and worked to share her knowledge and ability with teammates in an effort to help the team improve.
“I feel like, at some point, they didn’t like me, only because I would push people to be better,” Schahczinski said. “At the same time, I was a person who knew how to talk to all of my teammates and how they would respond best in certain situations.
“I feel like I had a good relationship with everyone on the team, but at times I feel like I kind of pushed people.”
Schahczinki’s desire to see teammates play better is humbly rooted. For all of her talent, she knew she was but one of five on the floor.
“I knew I couldn’t do everything,” Schahczinski said. “If I wanted to win games, I needed to help other people, too. Everybody knew I was going to score. I needed to help my team out in other ways.”
Schahczinki is playing about five minutes per game at Edgewood and averages about two points per game. The Eagles are 3-8 overall and 3-4 in the Northern Athletics Collegiate Conference.
For Schahczinski, basketball at Edgewood is about starting over after being a high school standout.
“It’s just weird being a freshman, because even when I was a freshman in high school I got to play,” Schahczinski said. “Here, it’s more when you’re a sophomore you’ve been here a year and you’re able to get more minutes.”
