About 36 hours after her Mitty High School basketball career ended with a disappointing loss in the state championship game, McKenna Woliczko was on the move.
“I have to get the bus in five minutes for our senior retreat,” Woliczko said last Monday morning. “I’ve had a day to let it sink in. It was very disappointing to end that way.
“But now it’s on to new things.”
Woliczko’s school retreat, at Mission San Juan Bautista, may have come at a perfect time. The course is designed as a moment of reflection for seniors making the transition into adulthood and new journeys. And Woliczko is on the precipice of a huge change.
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One of the top basketball players in the country — and among the most lauded recruits to ever come out of the Bay Area — Woliczko is about to launch into the quickly changing world of college women’s basketball.
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After a whirlwind spring that will include the prestigious McDonald’s All American Game at the Final Four on March 31, the Nike Hoop Summit in April, and her graduation in May, Woliczko will head to Iowa to begin her college experience with summer school and basketball conditioning. Woliczko was named a prestigious Naismith high school All-American a week ago, and is Hawkeyes coach Jan Jensen’s highest-ranked recruit in the post-Caitlin Clark era. As a result, Woliczko will inevitably draw comparisons to the player who ignited women’s basketball.
Mitty forward McKenna Woliczko fights for a position during a NorCal playoff game against San Ramon Valley-Danville in San Jose on March 7.
Stephen Lam/S.F. Chronicle
“I know that Caitlin and I are both different people and completely different players who impact the game in different ways,” Woliczko said. “But, if anything, I feel honored that people have compared me to Caitlin Clark.”
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Woliczko is a wing forward, who can rebound, defend and score in a variety of ways. Clark is a point guard with a lethal long-range shot.
“Comparisons are the thief of joy,” said Mitty coach Sue Phillips. “It can be limiting and sometimes the expectations can be overwhelming.
“Fortunately she plays a completely different position. And that allows her to be McKenna.”
However, if Woliczko continues on the trajectory she has been on, she could not only become a new favorite of the rabid Hawkeyes fan base, but a national name. She is entering the collegiate game when the spotlight has never been bigger and opportunities abound.
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“It makes you grateful for all the people that have gone before me and helped set the path for what athletics is today for women,” she said.
Iowa women’s basketball Head Coach Jan Jensen, right, and Erica Woliczko, center, watch Woliczko’s daughter McKenna after a NorCal playoff game in San Jose on March 10.
Stephen Lam/S.F. Chronicle
LEFT: McKenna Woliczko stands for a photograph with ten year-old Teagan Doan after being gifted a bracelet by Doan. RIGHT: Woliczko autographs her friend Billy Ferreira’s shirt after her CIF open division NorCal semifinal game against San Ramon Valley.
Stephen Lam/S.F. Chronicle
LEFT: McKenna Woliczko stands for a photograph with ten year-old Teagan Doan after being gifted a bracelet by Doan. RIGHT: Woliczko autographs her friend Billy Ferreira’s shirt after her CIF open division NorCal semifinal game against San Ramon Valley.
Stephen Lam/S.F. Chronicle
Woliczko has landed in a transforming world: She was born in 2008 and began high school while Clark’s star was skyrocketing, carrying women’s basketball with her. At the same time, the forces of the name, image and likeness (NIL) concept were reshaping college sports.
“I told her that I hope she continues to walk with grace, confidence and humility because that’s how I have seen her manage all of these things that have come her way,” Phillips said. “She had an agent her junior year in high school to help her navigate these waters.
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“But now it’s a job. And that comes with added responsibility. I don’t think she’s going into this blindly.”
Woliczko’s family background will also help her navigate this moment. Both her parents were collegiate athletes at University of the Pacific: Her mother, Erica, played softball and her father, Aaron, played basketball. Aaron went on to a coaching career and is now a senior associate commissioner for the West Coast Conference. He knows how college basketball operates and tries to keep it in perspective.
“Basketball could become business later on in life,” Aaron said. “But right now we want her to be able to be a kid, have the college life, have fun. I think she’s been able to do that. And, hopefully, her career will be longer than if we treat basketball as a business right now.”
LEFT: McKenna Woliczko puts on makeup before commuting to school. RIGHT: McKenna Woliczko prepares to leave for school with luggage for Saturday’s CIF State Championship game, as her father Aaron catches up on the morning news.
Stephen Lam/S.F. Chronicle
LEFT: McKenna Woliczko puts on makeup before commuting to school. RIGHT: McKenna Woliczko prepares to leave for school with luggage for Saturday’s CIF State Championship game, as her father Aaron catches up on the morning news.
Stephen Lam/S.F. Chronicle
As a little girl in Montana, when Aaron coached Montana Tech, Woliczko ran around the gym, accompanied her father on recruiting trips and dreamed about a future full of sports and Olympic glory.
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“I saw sports as my path,” she said. “But basketball was probably the last option I would have chosen when I was younger. It would have been softball, soccer, then volleyball, and then basketball. So it was very vague.”
But she was goal-oriented. When she was 8, she made a poster for her bedroom wall that proclaimed “I want to be the best in the country! I will be the best in the country! I am the best in the country.”
“I just never specified what I wanted to be best at,” she said with a laugh. “But I knew I wanted it.”
When she was in fifth grade she proclaimed she wanted to be an Olympian. Still no specific sport designation.
In the fifth grade, McKenna Woliczko declared her dream of being an Olympian. She played a variety of sports in childhood, including flag football, top right, and softball.
Photos courtesy of Aaron Woliczko
In the fifth grade, McKenna Woliczko declared her dream of being an Olympian. She played a variety of sports in childhood, including flag football and softball.
Photos courtesy of Aaron Woliczko
The poster that McKenna Woliczko made for her bedroom wall when she was eight years old.
Courtesy of Aaron Woliczko
The family moved back to the Bay Area, eventually settling in San Bruno where Erica grew up. Woliczko was playing both travel softball and basketball, but started seeing college coaches at her Bay City basketball games and realized hoops could be her destiny.
In 2022, she enrolled at Mitty, joining a program that was already a powerhouse. She became a starter as a freshman and the summer after her freshman year was tapped for USA Basketball’s U-16 team, where she averaged a double-double and helped the team win a FIBA gold medal in Mexico.
Woliczko’s star was on the rise. The recruiting letters were pouring in. She won another gold medal for USA Basketball at FIBA’s U-17 championship and was named to the All Star Five. Mitty was rolling.
And then, on Jan. 4, 2025, nine games into her junior season — arguably the best player on the best team in the country — her world changed. In a high-profile tournament at Carondelet High School in Concord, Woliczko was getting back on defense against powerhouse Ontario Christian. Without any contact, Woliczko fell to the court, grabbing her right knee.
“In my 30-plus years of coaching that was the most stunned I have ever seen a gym,” Phillips said. “It was such a gut punch.”
The diagnosis was a full ACL tear and meniscus damage.
“It was definitely a very stressful experience,” Woliczko said. “Deep down I knew at the moment I had torn it. It was a hard few weeks.”
Archbishop Mitty senior McKenna Woliczko during the CIF Basketball State Championships Open Division Girls game against Ontario Christian at the Golden 1 Center in Sacramento on March 14.
Chris Kaufman/For the S.F. Chronicle
But one of the first people to reach out was South Carolina coach Dawn Staley, who called to assure Woliczko that South Carolina was still interested in her. Other college coaches told her that so many great players had torn ACLs, that it was not a career changer.
“Everyone said they still wanted me,” Woliczko said. “So that was nice.”
Woliczko began the long rehabilitation process, both physically and mentally.
“She took a holistic approach from the standpoint of understanding the emotional toll this will have,” Phillips said. “Things like journal writing and talking to experts to formulate the right mindset. We all wanted to make sure she knew there was no rush and that we needed to make sure she was completely healthy.
“And she was a great teammate, at all the practices she could make, cheering on her teammates, giving sage advice. So when she stepped back on the floor she was fully embraced.”
LEFT: McKenna Woliczko, second from right, cheers from the bench during the second half of the CIF open division NorCal semifinal. RIGHT: Woliczko, second from left, smiles as she and teammates gather in a huddle before their open division semifinal game against San Ramon Valley.
Stephen Lam/S.F. Chronicle
TOP: McKenna Woliczko, second from right, cheers from the bench during the second half of their CIF open division NorCal semifinal. ABOVE: Woliczko, second from left, smiles as she and teammates gather in a huddle before their open division semifinal game against San Ramon Valley.
Stephen Lam/S.F. Chronicle
As she was rehabilitating, Woliczko worked on her shot. She was also deciding her future. She knew she wanted to go somewhere away from home. Her final four choices came down to Iowa, South Carolina, USC and Ohio State.
“It was about where I was going to be the most comfortable, living, education-wise, not just basketball,” Woliczko said. “I knew that Iowa was the place for me. It will definitely be a big change but it’s always good to venture out.”
Woliczko committed to Iowa in October. She doesn’t know Clark, but she noticed that the Indiana Fever star has commented on her Instagram posts. Kate Martin, who played with Clark at Iowa and is now with the Valkyries, messaged Woliczko to tell her she was welcome to wear her old No. 20.
One year, minus one day, after her devastating injury, Woliczko returned to the court.
McKenna Woliczko, center, and fellow Archbishop Mitty basketball teammates listen to assistant coach Tamara Monson as they prepare for the drive to Sacramento ahead of the CIF state championship, in San Jose, Calif., Friday, March 13, 2026. Woliczko, a senior and one of the top basketball recruits in the country, will be going to Iowa this fall.
Stephen Lam/S.F. Chronicle
“Right before, I was super nervous,” she said. “But then I played and I just felt good. Ever since that first game, I don’t even think twice about my knee.”
Phillips said she sensed Woliczko had a sense of gratitude, being back on the court. And she picked up where she left off, averaging double doubles in the face of double and triple teams.
She helped lead Mitty to a Central Coast Section championship, the NorCal championship and to the state final, where Mitty fell to Ontario Christian, losing the state championship game for a fifth year in a row.
“It’s the one thing I wasn’t able to cross off my bucket list,” Woliczko said.
But it’s time for a new bucket list. Woliczko is about to launch.
Archbishop Mitty High School forward McKenna Woliczko (20), center, gestures to a teammate after a score during the first half of their CIF open division NorCal championship against Clovis West in San Jose on March 10.
Stephen Lam/S.F. Chronicle