Local girls cap summer with Run for the Roses event

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — The summer basketball season is nearing an end and Lenawee County once again made a splash on the AAU stage .

Tecumseh’s Alli Zajac and Adrian’s Stevie Elam , both seniors to be, continued to pick up offers from schools from across the country and grow their games and a host of other county athletes had outstanding summers on the court.

Elam has picked up offers from Ball State, the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Western Michigan University and Cal Poly University and has visits scheduled for later in the summer. He has six Division I offers in all.

Zajac has received multiple college offers including recently from Radford and Southern Indiana.

June is generally an open month for area high schools to play in summer leagues, attend camps and shootouts or have individual work outs in their own gym while July is a month for AAU tournaments that college coaches may attend. Numerous local basketball players were scattered on a variety of AAU teams and from different age groups and competition levels.

Earlier this month, Onsted girls basketball coach Jon Hovermale took multiple teams from his Michigan Cobra AAU organization to compete in the well-known Run for the Roses event in Louisville, Kentucky. Hundreds of teams – and college coaches – descend on Louisville for the annual event.

“It was a great experience,” Hovermale said. “We try our best to help our local kids get the opportunity to get better and play on a big stage like the Run 4 Roses.”

The teams he coached includes fifth grade, seventh grade, a 2026 team and a 2027 team.

The 2026 team won its Gold Bracket Championship. That team included Kayla Gerken, Hannah Hill and Karlie Kimerer of Onsted, Colbie Ekins and Emersyn Bachelder from Morenci, Sophia Torres and Maddy VanBlack from Tecumseh, Jaeda Parish from Madison and Brynn Davis from Lenawee Christian.

Hovermale said it’s a credit to the girls from the county who can go to a national event like that and compete.

“Our girls are able to go compete versus some of the best teams and players in the country,” he said. “When the girls come back to Lenawee County, they can play with a high level of confidence to help impact the school teams.”

Hovermale formed the Michigan Cobras when he was a graduate assistant at Siena Heights University four years ago. He played for four years for the Saints prior and comes from a family background of coaching the sport.

“We have been able to compete at these high-level tournaments," he said. "But with our 2026 team winning our division at the Run for the Roses it is our first major championship in the program.”

Zajac and her sister, Addi, along with Tecumseh teammates Makayla Schlorf, Chloe Bullinger and Ashlyn Morehead, plus Leigh Wyman from Blissfield, played in the Select 40 league in Cincinnati the same weekend as the Run for the Roses, then were at the Select 40 championships in Louisville this past weekend.

“You have to win so many games against tough competition to get into the league,” said Tecumseh head coach Kristy Zajac.

Other county players picked up offers recently as well. Schlorf has been offered by Saginaw Valley State University, Morehead by Olivet and Albion and Lauren Killbarger, who played at the Run for the Roses for a different team, by Kalamazoo College.

This article originally appeared on The Daily Telegram: Local girls cap summer with Run for the Roses event