#12 - GIRLS - Elk River/Zimmerman
This week we are reviewing #12 ranked Elk River/Zimmerman.
2023 Record
15-4. Beat East Ridge in State Consolation Finals.
Who did they lose (not necessarily everyone, just most notable)?
Adria Kotzian – A/M
62 goals, 44 assists, 106 points, 59 DC, 62 GB
Committed to American (D1)
Isabelle Dols – M/D
27 goals, 6 assists, 33 points, 35 GB, 14 FT
Who is returning?
2024 Katelyn Wozney - M
28 goals, 5 assists, 33 points, 84 DC, 86 GB
Committed to Northern Michigan (D2)
2024 Morgan Peterson - A
22 goals, 4 assists, 26 points, 30 GB
2025 Lillian Osterman - M
48 goals, 7 assists, 55 points, 77 DC, 68 GB
2024 Madison Kucera - A
12 goals, 3 assists, 15 points
Committed to Concordia St. Paul (D2)
2024 Addison Brandt - GK
7.80 GAA, 50.4%
Instant Reaction
Consider this our very formal shout out to the Zimmerman portion of Elk River/Zimmerman. Because we don’t like typing that, we’re calling you ERZ from now on. No disrespect, and feels like you guys embrace that any.
Partially our fault, but was there any less “press” for a 100 point scorer than for Adria Kotzian? In our defense, we are quite literally the smallest of “j” journalists around, but since the big “J” Journalists aren’t covering it (any of it), this is exactly the space we need to fill. We’ll do better.
The Future
Playing off our instant reaction, Kotzian sucked up a lot of the oxygen for the squad and feels like it’s a ripe opportunity for Lillian Osterman to step up. Bleeding a little in Stat Crusade, Kotzian accounted for more than half of the teams assists, and no one had double digit assists besides her. There are reps/stats to take and feels like Osterman could be the one to do it.
Looking a little more at the roster make up, only 6 of the 23 rostered players last year were 2026 or younger…which isn’t that surprising, since those would have been your Freshman and younger. What caught our eye is that 2 of those 6 are 2028s. Indication of things brewing in the ERZ youth program?
Here’s also a little snippet from one of our favorites, the North Side Source: Watch for Brummer and Holte (2026) to make a big leap this year.
There you have it.
Stat Crusade
In our crusade on assist percentage…ERZ assisted 81/257 goals scored…31.5%.
For the record, the teams reviewed are 59.1%, 50.1%, 34.8%, 67.4%, 58.7%, 55.7%, 33.3%, 38.2%, 44.5%, 50.7%, 57.9%, and 31.5%.
So ERZ had the lowest assist to goal ratio so far…and of those 81 assists, 54.3% were from Adria Kotzian. She also scored 24.1% of the team’s goals. Talk about not moving the needle, but being the needle.
A few more interesting stats:
ERZ was the most prolific GB team in MSHSL. Who knows the actual details in why (they are scrappy, they over credit GBs, there are typos), but they had the 3rd (Wozney), 11th (Osterman), and 14th (Kotzian) ranked GB stat earners in the state.
Moving on to DCs…those three made up 220 of the team’s 241 DCs! 91.2%! We know who was on the draw circle for ERZ last year! We expect those numbers to maintain for Wozney (84 in 2023) and Osterman (77 in 2023) depending on who is actually taking the draw…but someone is going to have to help them eat up some of Kotzian’s DCs (59 in 2023). We didn’t watch a lot of ERZ, but we’d bet Kotzian was on the draw and Wozney and Osterman were on the circle.
2024 Schedule?
Breaking a little bit of the 4th wall here in an attempt at something that resembles actual journalism (but without a second source), shout out to a loyal reader for letting us in on some new info on the NW Suburban Conference and their game scheduling. To paraphrase:
NW Suburban Conference is splitting for boys and girls lacrosse into two. Think similar to Big10 East and Big10 West. We’ll call them NWSC North and NWSC South, but that the naming convention seems to be NOT a done deal
This allows the schools to schedule more non-conference games (this is a very good thing)
Some of our observations in missing games and notable missing matchups for Maple Grove and Champlin Park are because of the conference split (thank you for pumping our tires)
The teams are holding 2-3 “cross conference” game spots where match ups will be determined by seeding in season, after their intra conference games are done. These will be determined in early May (this is wild, makes total sense, and we love it)
How the split is shaping up:
NWSC “North”: Andover, Anoka, Blaine, Centennial, Champlin Park, Coon Rapids, and Spring Lake Park
NWSC “South”: Armstrong, Elk River/Zimmerman, Maple Grove, Osseo/Park Center, Rogers, Totino-Grace
Now for the 4th wall breaking part: We did this ERZ write up on November 10…but our loyal reader reached out after reading the Champlin Park write up. So, we added this part on December 10. As you will or have read, some of our fantasy match ups can’t really happen, but we want to keep it true to what we actually wrote. Anyway, sorry Gentry…your scheduling task might have become a little harder than we thought (assuming you guys are going to do MSHSL in 2024 and not go national).
This might not be that current of news…maybe it is. Whatever. We are just really glad that someone is out there reading these! Since we didn’t know this info, there is a chance out there that our 2-3 other readers didn’t know this either. So there you are.
On to what we originally wrote November 10, which is now surprisingly funny and observant at the same time:
10/13 in the books for ERZ. They are reportedly hesitant to a have many non-conference or non-section games…but we see at least 2 (Minnetonka and Eastview).
In addition to Minnetonka, they have Maple Grove on the books already. Good opponent there.
Missing conference “friends” in Andover and Centennial…but could also fill those spots with section opponents Moorhead or Buffalo. Good chance to mix it up a little?
We’d sign up for an ERZ/Moorhead match up on SpudTV in a heartbeat. Sydney Martinson vs Katie Wozney seems like a very interesting Section 8 match up.
Interesting Nugget No One is Talking About
(7) 2024s for ERZ, including Wozney and their goalie, Addison Brandt. Will that suspected younger crop coming up from youth be able to fill in the spots?
In Conclusion
Let’s bring it home with a final thought from the NS source:
“ERZ loses Kotzian, obviously huge loss. One other senior starter (Dols) will also hurt. Positives are 5 varsity players play club, so will receive a lot of training this winter. Getting the goalie back helps. Bringing back Wozney and Osterman on circle will help. Senior class has played together for years and need 2-3 girls to step up.”
Basically, what took us two pages to say.
Coming next week: Park of Cottage Grove