Lewis Out at Adams.

Written Thursday October 20th at 9:15 AM
Updated Friday October 21st at 10:50 AM

Girls Basketball season starts in two weeks and there is yet another job opening in the OAA.

This time its at Adams.

Highlanders coach Shay Lewis stepped down as Highlanders coach this week leaving Adams without a Varsity coach. The job was posted Wednesday morning.

Lewis took a new job at Oakland University as the Director of Operations for Women's Basketball meaning that she wouldn't have time doing three jobs as once. She also worked for Detroit Pal as well.

There were rumblings about Adams being in turmoil the last two seasons and this appears to have came ahead.

Lewis replaced Fran Scislowicz whom retired from coaching Girls Basketball in 2013. Scislowicz still coaches the softball team at Adams. She played under Scislowicz in the early 1990's.

There are a couple of candidates that could easily fill the void at Adams especially this late in the game. They include freshman coach Jeff Kutschman, junior varsity coach Jeff Castonia, former Orion coach Steve Roberts, or Scislowicz could come back. Possible wildcard candidates could be former Bloomfield Hills Lahser coach Bob Brydges, former Oxford coach Al Poinyter, and former Farmington Hills Harrison coach Tim Micklash.

Whomever the new coach is will have a solid team to go around with this season. The Highlanders return Maggie Rogers whom is an all state three point shooter along with Hannah Simard and Ryian Owusu.

The Highlanders are in the very difficult Red division with arch city rival Stoney Creek along with Southfield Arts and Tech, North Farmington, and Clarkston. Adams is in a tough district as they will go to Utica and be with the Cougars, Rochester, Utica, and Utica Eisenhower.

Adams opens up the season on December 9th with Orion at home.

Thoughts:

Lewis stepping down from her dream job at Adams was a complete shock. Also there was turmoil surrounding her program. One of them was getting Taylor Smith from Linden but there others as well.

This was so late in the game, we are only two weeks away from the start of Girls Basketball season. If I'm Adams Athletic Director Jason Rapp I'm finding a coach quick. This puts him in a real bad spot unless they go in house.

I believe what will happen is that the Highlanders would go in house with their coaching search, that's why I believe that Kutschman and Castonia have the best shots at getting the job.

Scislowicz would be an interesting hire because he has experience coaching at Adams and currently coached the softball team there. He has coached the Girls Basketball program before but we don't know if he would come back or not. There are a lot of coaches that have came back to coach at their former school. It was well know in Boys Basketball with Jim Manzo at Orion, Steve Laidlaw at Oxford, Tom Stanton at Ferndale, Tim Morton at Avondale, and Brad Crighton coaching the Highlanders boys.

I think that if Adams goes outside the box for their next coach then Roberts, Brydges, Poinyter, and Micklash are possible options.

The Highlanders have a tough non conference schedule with games against Orion, Bloomfield Hills, Fraser, Oxford, Utica, Groves, and a rematch with Macomb Dakota.

Whomever is the next coach is must stabilize the program after two seasons of inner turmoil. The new coach at Adams will join the list of new coaches in the OAA which includes Kevin Kopec at Orion, Rachel Bryer at Oxford, Phil Dawson at Avondale, and Michelle Marshall at Southfield Arts and Tech.

Stay tuned to OAA Now for the latest updates on this developing story.