'Lolo Show' Helping Make Grand Haven Softball Must-See During Program's Record Run
By
Tom Kendra
Special for MHSAA.com
June 11, 2026
MOUNT PLEASANT – “The Lolo Show” continues to produce one exciting, dramatic episode after another.
In the latest installment Tuesday at Central Michigan University, Grand Haven senior pitcher Lorelei “Lolo” Chciuk did it with her bat – ripping a bases-loaded double in the top of the 10th inning to lift the Buccaneers to a 5-1 victory over Traverse City Central in a Division 1 Quarterfinal showdown at Margo Jonker Stadium.
“Lo is the star of the show, but everybody plays a role,” said 10th-year Grand Haven coach John Hall. “This was her moment at the plate. She saw the opportunity and went after it.
“That ball was absolutely rocked.”
Grand Haven (33-7-1) hopes to produce two more episodes, starting with Thursday’s 10 a.m. opening Division 1 Semifinal against Macomb Dakota – which will extend already the deepest run in school history.
Chciuk (which rhymes with shook) will be there in her lead role on the rubber, where she has piled up more than 1,000 career strikeouts.
This season, she has simply overpowered a difficult Ottawa-Kent Conference Red and nonconference schedule, with 357 strikeouts over 167 innings pitched – an average of 2.14 strikeouts per inning. She has a 19-5 record and 0.92 ERA.
“We have a bunch of seniors, and we want to keep it going,” explained Chciuk, who has a very capable No. 2 pitcher behind her in senior shortstop Bri Borgman. “Our saying right now is: Don’t think, just do.”
Chciuk has really upped her play to another level during the past three games, or episodes, if you will.
In the Regional Semifinal on June 6, Haven fell behind Rockford 4-0 in the first inning. Chciuk then came on in relief and shut down the Rams the rest of the way, striking out 14 as the Bucs rallied for a 10-4 win.
That set up the dramatic Regional Final against top-ranked and longtime nemesis Hudsonville, where Chciuk threw a no-hitter and struck out 10 more batters in a 3-1 upset win.
“My rise ball has been really good lately, and that really gives me confidence,” said Chciuk, the daughter of Harry and Amanda Chciuk. “I absolutely love my rise ball right now, and it’s getting a lot of people out.”
Chciuk certainly throws hard, with a fastball that tops out around 65 mph, but what makes her so difficult for batters to figure out is the way all of her pitches move. In addition to the fastball, she also throws a rise ball, changeup and curveball.
She is also very quick to deflect credit to her teammates, particularly the other two big bats at the top of the order in leadoff hitter Borgman and No. 2 hitter and senior catcher Bella Korf.
Borgman leads the team with a .487 average, with eight home runs, 15 doubles and 39 RBI (along with an 11-1 pitching record and 2.16 ERA). Korf is right behind her in the lineup and in batting average at .444, with team highs in home runs (10) and RBI (41).
“We’ve all come together closer and closer this season,” explained Chciuk. “There’s girls in the dugout whose role is to keep the energy up and to be ready, and there’s girls who are just trying to get on base to get things going. It takes all of us, especially right now.”
Those three are the leaders of a veteran team, which has used its age and experience to win one close game after another all season. Other seniors are centerfielder Claire Sova, third baseman Rheagan Cobb, second baseman Natalie Waite, McKayla Goossen and Paige Sitzer.
The Buccaneers, who avenged earlier losses to Rockford, Hudsonville and Traverse City Central over the past three games of this playoff run, are adding to a breakthrough spring sports season for Grand Haven – which is best known for its sandy beaches, picturesque boardwalk and annual Coast Guard Festival.
Haven won the inaugural Division 1 boys volleyball title last weekend, finished fifth and 13th, respectively, at the boys and girls Track & Field Finals, and celebrated a national title in the pole vault by senior Izzy Robbins.
Now the softball team is playing much later into June than expected.
“We were supposed to have our end-of-year banquet on Wednesday night, but we had to postpone that,” said Hall, who is assisted by Jamie Burton, Geoff Franz and Ben Korf. “This team is knocking down walls and breaking through ceilings that Grand Haven has never done before.”
After this weekend, both Chciuk and Borgman (a Ferris State commit) will play in the State Champs/Turnin’ 2 all-star game on June 15 at the University of Michigan’s Alumni Field.
Then Chciuk will be taking her show on the road to Saginaw Valley State, where the 3.53 GPA-student plans to pursue a pre-veterinary career path, majoring in cellular and molecular biology.
But that was the last thing on her mind after Tuesday’s thrilling extra-innings win.
“Right now, I just want to sleep,” said Chciuk, who pitched all 10 innings in Tuesday’s win, in addition to delivering the decisive blow at the plate. “We talk about making memories and making core memories.
“This win today was huge because it means that Grand Haven softball is going to MSU for the first time ever. Yeah, this is definitely a core memory that will stay with me forever.”
Tom Kendra worked 23 years at The Muskegon Chronicle, including five as assistant sports editor and the final six as sports editor through 2011. E-mail him at [email protected] with story ideas for Muskegon, Oceana, Mason, Lake, Oceola, Mecosta and Newaygo counties.
PHOTOS (Top) Lorelei Chciuk makes her move toward the plate during Tuesday's Quarterfinal win at CMU. (Middle) Chciuk, right, has led Grand Haven on its deepest MHSAA Tournament run. (Photos by Josh Walters/Local Sports Journal.)
Scislowicz Selected to MHSCA Hall of Fame After Decades Serving in Multiple Sports
By
Keith Dunlap
Special for MHSAA.com
September 18, 2025
Fran Scislowicz admitted he went back and forth about what to say in his speech as he was inducted into the Michigan High School Coaches Association Hall of Fame on Sunday.
But as the time approached to deliver it, he just harkened back to what was a principal trait during his coaching career: making sure everything was about others and not himself.
“It was a neat experience to be able to say thank you back,” Scislowicz said of what he primarily said in his speech in front of family and friends, including a brother who drove from Colorado for the ceremony. “I can’t find a head coach that doesn’t have that village behind them to support them in so many different ways.”
Scislowicz certainly had a big village throughout a long career in several sports at Rochester Adams. He was the head varsity softball coach for 37 years before retiring from that post in 2024, the head girls basketball coach for 23 years before retiring in 2013, the defensive coordinator on the varsity football team in the late 1980s and early 90s and this season is in his 28th year serving on the chain gang at Adams’ football games.
In this modern age, it’s not easy to find coaches who stick around one school in one sport for a great length of time. It should be noted that the two other coaches from the Detroit area who were inducted Sunday – Troy basketball coach Gary Fralick and Richmond softball coach Howard Stuart – fit that bill perfectly as well.
But having a coach stick around in several sports for such a long time is even rarer, which made Scislowicz an obvious choice to be inducted.
A retired elementary physical education teacher in the Rochester district, Scislowicz developed the dream to teach and coach as a youth while attending practices and games his older brothers were involved in.
“I go, ‘If I could be a physical education teacher during the day and then coach after school, that would be wonderful,’” he said. “I kind of had that passion and idea to do it really young.”
The highlight of his coaching career on the field came during the 1993-94 school year, when both his Adams girls basketball and softball teams made the MHSAA Semifinals. It was the only time those programs made the semifinals during his tenure, and they did so over a span of months.
“I was told back then by some wise, veteran coaches, ‘Fran, you don’t realize how hard it is to do what you just did, and you might never get back,’” he said. “And we didn’t.”
Scislowicz is listed among the state’s winningest coaches on the diamond with a record of 803-487 from 1988-2024. But if his original ambitions had played out, he wouldn’t have had long careers coaching softball and girls basketball at Adams.
While serving as the football team’s defensive coordinator under then-head coach Jack Runchey during the late 1980s and early 90s, he thought he was next in line to become the program’s head coach.
But in 1991, the girls basketball program was a blossoming state power in need of a leader, so Scislowicz gave up football to focus his fall seasons (girls basketball was played during the fall then) on hoops.
More important than his coaching on the court or field was his faith-based mentoring off of it.
Scislowicz to this day is actively involved in the area’s Fellowship of Christian Athletes organization and put together regular meetings before school for students and athletes to attend.
In the end, that’s what he hopes his biggest coaching legacy remains.
“We had a saying that you don’t have to be great to serve, but you have to serve to be great,” he said. “We really tried to give back to kids that way, by serving and doing that way. The wins and losses were going to take care of themselves. It’s the impact of seeing what kids are like at 30, 40 or 50 years old. As I’ve been around one community, trying to be a difference maker is what I enjoy most.”
Keith Dunlap has served in Detroit-area sports media for more than two decades, including as a sportswriter at the Oakland Press from 2001-16 primarily covering high school sports but also college and professional teams. His bylines also have appeared in USA Today, the Washington Post, the Detroit Free Press, the Houston Chronicle and the Boston Globe. He served as the administrator for the Oakland Activities Association’s website from 2017-2020. Contact him at [email protected] with story ideas for Oakland, Macomb and Wayne counties.
(Photo courtesy of Fran Scislowicz.)