April 6, 2020 at 3:57 p.m.
Titanic commitment
Van Zile, all-time leading scorer at RHS, to play women's basketball at UW-Oshkosh
Titanic commitment
On Wednesday, she announced the final piece of the puzzle.
Van Zile, the all-time leading scorer in Rhinelander basketball history, will play collegiately at UW-Oshkosh.
Due to the Safer at Home order issued by Gov. Tony Evers in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, there was no formal signing ceremony. Van Zile announced her decision via Twitter in a tweet that included a picture of her holding a basketball and wearing a UW-Oshkosh 2019 Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference championship T-shirt.
"I was just really happy to finally make my decision," Van Zile told the River News in a phone interview. "It's definitely a bit intimidating and scary because it's college basketball. It's the next level. It's not like there's going to be bad teams. You have a lot of competition and you're fighting for spots and playing time. It is scary and it's a big commitment, but I'm just excited."
At Oshkosh, Van Zile will be joining a team that went 20-10 overall and had advanced to the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Division III women's basketball tournament before the event was canceled, along with virtually every other sporting endeavor, due to COVID-19. It marked the program's fourth trip to the third round of the tournament since coach Brad Fischer took over the program in the 2012-13 season.
"I think it's a great fit for her," RHS girls' basketball coach Ryan Clark said. "Oshkosh is a championship program. They're a contender for the national championship year in and year out since coach Fischer has been there. They get really good players in mainly from Wisconsin, but really high-level, skilled players. There are high expectations. He brings in good character kids, too."
Van Zile led the Hodags, scoring 21.3 points per game while adding 4.0 rebounds, 3.4 assists and 4.1 steals per conference. During the season Van Zile not only became the all-time leading scorer in RHS girls' basketball history, surpassing Becky Knutson, her 1,670 career points put her at the top of the all-time scoring list at Rhinelander - eclipsing Mike Flory's previous school mark by 104 points.
Van Zile racked up the postseason awards as well. In addition to being named unanimous first-team All-Great Northern Conference and the GNC's co-player of the year with teammate Cynthia Beavers, Van Zile received All-State honors from both the Wisconsin Basketball Coaches Association and The Associated Press and has been selected to take part in the WBCA Division 2 All-Star game currently scheduled for June in Wisconsin Dells.
"Kenedy, I give her a lot of credit," Clark said. "For her to get WBCA All-State, Division 2 says a lot about how good of a player she is and it really says a lot about how much respect she earned statewide this year. I think Oshkosh got a good steal. I think Kenedy can play at a pretty high level and they added a pretty nice piece to their program."
In terms of recruitment, Van Zile said Oshkosh arrived on the scene later than some other schools but put on a full-court press to land her. In addition to plenty of interaction and messages with players and coaches, UW-Oshkosh had representatives on hand Feb. 20 when Van Zile broke the all-time RHS scoring record.
"Their team really just made a great effort," she said. "They came to my games, they sent me messages. The players all sent me messages before playoff games. They were just really welcoming."
Van Zile said the COVID-19 situation created some unique challenges in the final weeks of her recruitment. For instance, she said, she was never able to take a formal visit around the Oshkosh campus. That needed to be done virtually.
"That was hard, but then their coach and one of the team members, who's actually majoring in what I want to major in, which is business, made a video of the campus and the facilities just for me and sent it to me," she said. "That was pretty cool and a neat thing for them to do. I got to see, off videos, where I would be living and practicing and the classes I'd be taking. That was pretty cool."
UW-Oshkosh has fared well recently in the WIAC, which is made up of schools in the University of Wisconsin system and is widely considered to be one of the top Division-III athletic conference in the nation. The Titans have won the WIAC tournament championship five times since 2014 and won the WIAC regular season title in 2017 and 2019.
"That's something that very intimidating but super exciting at the same time," Van Zile said. "I'll get to face new challenges, different skill levels and things like that."
Clark said Van Zile has the traits to thrive at Oshkosh.
"She's a competitive kid that doesn't back down," he said. "One thing is you're a freshman. They have a nice freshman recruiting class coming in there. When she was leaning pretty heavily toward Oshkosh, I kind of looked at some of the recruits. They have a nice recruiting class coming in with her and some other pretty good little guards, but she's a kid that can obviously shoot it, attack (the rim) and I think you put her around some really good players, I think her skill set will really shine."
Van Zile becomes the fourth player during Clark's tenure at RHS to go on to play collegiately, joining Kylie Hunter (Ripon College), Syndei Smith (UW-Platteville) and Kaly Kostrova (UW-Superior).
"It's kind of fun to coach kids that are talented young players and wonderful kids. It's exciting. It puts our program on the map," Clark said.
Van Zile thanked her coaches and her family for their support, as well as the Rhinelander community, which she said supported the team thoroughly during the last two seasons in which Rhinelander went 37-12 overall and claimed its first two conference championships.
"I thought it was a great environment to play in, and they're great people to play in front of. I just really appreciate all of their support," she said.
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