Since arriving on the school’s Ann Arbor campus in the summer of 2019, University of Michigan junior attackman Josh Zawada arguably has been the Wolverines’ most talented, versatile and driven player.

Zawada leads Michigan in goals (36) and assists (27) and ranks fifth in the nation with 5.58 points per game. At some point in April, he could own the highest career point total in the program’s short Division I history.

Zawada also could make a strong case for having logged more miles honing his game — in the United States and especially in Canada — than anyone else in his team’s locker room.

Consider that, Zawada, 22, is a native of Raleigh, N.C., who spent all but one of his high school years and much of every summer during that period north of the border, attending school and playing field or box lacrosse. He came to Michigan by way of the prestigious Hill Academy, where he played for three seasons in Ontario, including a post-graduate year.

Zawada was part of a Hill Academy attack trio that included current Duke star Dyson Williams and Georgetown’s Dylan Watson. Zawada originally committed to Syracuse early in his junior year at The Hill, then decided to de-commit before weighing an attractive offer from tradition-rich North Carolina, with the Tar Heels’ campus a 30-minute drive from where he grew up.

But the idea of hitting the road again, this time for a different, storied institution 700 miles away, appealed to the seasoned, young traveler. And the thought of helping Michigan’s young varsity program make a competitive dent in the powerful Big Ten pulled Zawada north once again.

“I’m always up for challenges. I knew it would probably be a struggle in my first two years or so. It’s a building process,” says Zawada, who of course did not see the COVID-19 pandemic coming. “I wanted to help to build this program so we have a Top 20 team for years to come.”

Michigan (7-5, 0-3 Big Ten) is in its 11th season at Division I and its seventh playing in the Big Ten. The Wolverines, who have totaled six wins against league opponents, beat their first seven non-conference opponents this year, many by wide margins, including a 10-goal rout over Delaware.

But they have hit some bumps lately as their schedule has ramped up, losing five straight to Harvard, Notre Dame, Johns Hopkins, Maryland and Penn State. The Nittany Lions needed overtime to top Michigan 9-8 last Friday. The Wolverines host Rutgers on Saturday at noon.

“There is so much upside with how young our team is,” adds Zawada, alluding to Michigan’s starting lineup that includes four sophomores and two freshmen. “I know we are going to be really good at some point. Everyone has to keep buying into what we’re doing. It has to take some time. We are getting there.”

Even though the pandemic ended Michigan’s season at 4-3 in March 2020, Zawada immediately established himself as a key to the program’s future by scoring 32 points (16 goals and assists each) to lead all freshmen in the country. 

Last year, he led the team in goals (24) and assists (15), as the Wolverines went 2-8 in a COVID-fueled, 10-game regular season in which each Big Ten school faced five opposing teams twice. Michigan then knocked off Ohio State in the league tournament quarterfinals and finished 3-9. The Wolverines are aiming to build on that progress this spring in their first full season since 2019.

To watch the 6-foot-2, 180-pound Zawada now is to watch a hybrid threat for defenses to cover — a field lacrosse player with athletic gifts dating to elementary school and the influences of the Canadian game he discovered later.

Zawada is explosive enough to get by defenders and catch, pass or shoot effectively on the run. He’s got the vision to dissect defenses from behind the net, up top or on the wing. He is equally adept in space or carrying, passing or receiving the ball in tighter spots. His weaker left hand is solid. His motor runs on up-tempo, yet he is rarely out of control. He is a pure combination of attackman and midfielder.

“Josh can be the engine, the finisher, the assist man and the goal scorer. I consider him a position-less player,” says Justin Turri, Michigan’s offensive coordinator since joining fifth-year head coach Kevin Conry after the 2018 season.

“[Zawada] grew up in Raleigh, plays like a Canadian and is a dynamic athlete, as fast as anything,” Turri adds. “He creates so much with his speed and a well-rounded skill set. His point total is high, but the cool thing is how much he plays within the flow of the game, making the right play at the right time. He just makes everyone better.”

“What a great decision maker [Zawada is],” says sophomore attackman Michael Boehm, who credits Zawada for a bunch of his 27 goals, second-best on the Wolverines. “We reap the benefits of how well Josh reads the game and how much he cares about making passes right on someone’s ear. In practice, he has scored six goals in a 10-minute scrimmage.”

Growing up in Raleigh, Zawada remembers being drawn to lacrosse ever since he held his first stick in second grade. He also made time for football and basketball during his elementary school years. His father, John, officiated local high school lacrosse games. His son loved the pace of the game.

As a young boy, Zawada sat in the stands watching his share of North Carolina and Duke games. The Blue Devils, who won their first NCAA title in 2010, were led in the 2000s by stars such as Matt Danowski, Ned Crotty and Turri.

“Watching the Tar Heels and the Blue Devils play was the best lacrosse you could watch,” Zawada says.

In time, Zawada’s perspective on being a lacrosse player would widen substantially.

It first happened before the summer following his eighth grade year. His uncle, Craig Zawada, who still resides with his family in the tiny, southeastern British Columbia town of Kimberley — about a four-hour drive from Calgary, Alberta — suggested Josh join his cousin, Hunter, for an extended visit built around playing box lacrosse together.

Before long, Josh Zawada was in Western Canada, not far above the Idaho-Montana border, playing for a team in Cranbrook, B.C., under a coach named Russ Sheppard.

Now an owner of a law firm and a partner in the National Lacrosse League’s Albany Firewolves, Sheppard is a former teacher who helped to bring the box game to a high school in Nunavut, in the Far North of Canada. It was later the basis for a documentary called “The Grizzlies.”

Zawada, who eventually would be a lacrosse extra in the film, says his initial exposure to the box game that summer would transform his approach to the game. For starters, he spent the entire two months treating his left “off” hand as his primary shooting hand.

“That summer made me want to take my game to another level,” he recalls. “I really liked the Canadian game and how unselfish it is. The ball can’t stay in your stick for long, because the game is pretty physical [on the smaller, indoor field].”

Zawada also says Sheppard advised him to consider attending a school in Edmonton, Alberta — Vimy Ridge Academy, where Sheppard had assisted in the development of its public-school based lacrosse curriculum. He had ended his teaching career at Hill Academy.

Upon his return to Raleigh, Zawada threw his parents for a loop when he announced a plan he had finalized in his mind.

“This 14-year-old sits down with us and says he wants to pursue lacrosse opportunities and here is the path he wants to take,” John Zawada recalls. “He wants to go to school in Edmonton for a year, then go to the Hill Academy. He said that learning the box game will help with his field game and that he thinks he would love it. My wife and I said, ‘Well, that’s not going to happen.’”

Later, after Zawada failed to make the varsity lacrosse team as a freshman at Cardinal Gibbons High School in Raleigh, his parents reconsidered and decided to give their son another, more adventurous try at lacrosse, Western Canada style.

“That year was probably the best lacrosse experience I’ve ever had,” says Zawada, who, along with his cousin, lived with a Vimy Ridge teammates’ family his sophomore year. “I was 2,500 miles from my family. We played field lacrosse until October, box until April and field until June.”

“Josh was always one of our go-to guys,” says Vimy Ridge program director Paul Rai, who coached Zawada on the Sherwood Park Titans Junior B box team and the Edmonton Blues Junior A squad. “He used the box game to step up his field game, but he could definitely take a run at playing box if he ever wanted to commit to it. We knew some good [colleges] would be knocking at his door.”

Zawada would earn a spot in 2016 on the U19 Team USA Box National Team. In 2018, he was traded to the Okotoks Raiders and was part of Junior A Box team that won the prestigious Minto Cup. 

Zawada ended up at the Hill Academy in the fall of 2016. Over the next three years, he flourished under legendary head coach Brodie Merrill. Zawada was Hill Academy MVP in 2017 and Geico Tournament MVP in 2018. Each year, he was part of a national title team. He scored 60 points as a senior.

“We didn’t really know what we had, but we knew [Zawada] came here with a good foundation. He made his mark at The Hill pretty early,” Merrill says. 

“You don’t see that many ball handlers like him in Canada. Josh is a laid-back, humble, happy-go-lucky guy with a competitive side he can really turn on. He could really take over a game. It was easy to tell he was ready to make an impact at the next level.”

The Wolverines don’t know how much they will improve their standing in the Big Ten in the coming weeks. But they continue to draw valuable confidence from the guy who sets the tone for them every day.

“Guys around him just play harder and go faster. Josh creates the tempo we want every day, flying around at practice, saying maybe two or three words,” Conry says. “He’s an athletic specimen with great skills. I thought he was one of the top [freshmen] talents in the country coming in. Once he was on the field, we [coaches] were like, ‘Whoa, he’s the guy.’

“Josh has embraced that and continues to lead by example,” Conry adds. “When you have a guy like him, especially as a young program trying to make headway in the landscape of Division I lacrosse and the Big Ten, he adds so much more than a scoring presence. His confidence and his vibe just bleed into everything.”