Maryville guard Denae Fritz, the 2018-19 Girls’ Basketball Underclassman of the Year, heads toward the hoop against Bearden in a District 4-AAA contest in Maryville, Tennessee, on Friday, Dec. 14, 2018. (Photo by Danny Parker)
BY DAVE LINK
Denae Fritz takes a pass. Drives toward the basket.
Stops.
Jumps.
Shoots.
Scores.
It’s one of many moves on the basketball court that make the Maryville High School sophomore a Division I college recruit.
“Denae can pull up off the dribble and shoot the pull-up jump shot as good as any player, boy or girl, I’ve seen in this area in a while,” Maryville coach Scott West said. “She’s deadly.”
Fritz, the 5Star Preps Girls’ Basketball Underclassman of the Year, already has offers from Chattanooga and Tennessee Tech, and she’s taken a visit to Vanderbilt.
She’s got the highest of aspirations.
“I’m trying to go big D-1,” Fritz said. “Like top-25.”
You can’t blame a player of Fritz’s talent for shooting high.
She spent the past two seasons – particularly this past season – playing in the shadows of senior post Lindsey Taylor and senior point guard Courtney Carruthers. Taylor is a Furman signee.
Regardless, Fritz put up big numbers, averaging 13 points and eight rebounds while shooting 42 percent from 3-point range and 62 percent overall.
“She’s a very humble kid,” West said. “Now this kind of becomes her team as she rolls into it (with the departure of Taylor and Carruthers).
“She’s surrounded by a lot of really good players coming back. We’re going to miss our senior class, but I don’t think we’ll miss a beat too much. I think we’ll be OK because we’ve got eight kids (coming back) that played a lot. Denae’s obviously a huge part of that.”
Fritz had at least 10 double-doubles in scoring and rebounding.
Her numbers were steady as the Lady Rebels (31-4) advanced to the Class AAA state sectionals before losing to Science Hill in Johnson City, 55-52.
“There were several games where (Fritz) would go 13 and 12 (points and rebounds), 16 and 14,” West said. “She never had that big explosion, a 25- to 28-point game, but she didn’t take a lot of shots. She was very selective on her shot attempts. Sometimes she would have six to eight shot attempts per game, which we all know that’s going to change coming up next year.”
Fritz becomes the go-to player this coming season. She doesn’t plan on carrying the load alone.
“(West will) just probably expect a little more out of everybody from the team to pick up the points and all the things that Courtney and Lindsey did for the team,” Fritz said. “He’ll just expect everybody else to contribute and make all those things back up.”
Fritz has basketball in her blood. Both of her parents, Carrie Stephens and Daeon Fritz, played high school basketball, and Stephens ran college track.
Fritz’s older sister, DeAndra, also played basketball at Maryville.
“My whole family has been an influence on how I got where I am,” Denae said.
Fritz, who’s almost 5-foot-10, spent most of the 2018-19 season playing power forward because of the personnel surrounding her, but she plans on playing guard in college.
“She’s very versatile,” West said. “She can play multiple positions because she has such great athleticism and length that she can handle the ball, play the point, and we play her sometimes as a four (power forward). She can go about anywhere we need her to go and she can create her own shot.”
Fritz currently is playing AAU basketball for Knoxville-based Tennessee Flight Select.
Two of her Maryville teammates, Gracie Midkiff and Aaliyah Vanada, play in the same program.
Fritz wants to improve several facets of her game before her junior season at Maryville.
“Defense, for sure, and then ballhandling, just getting better with the ball in my hands and beating people off the dribble,” she said.
Her AAU season ends in July, and then her basketball focus turns to Maryville.
She wants to make a deeper postseason run next year.
“I think we had a great season,” Fritz said. “It didn’t end the way we wanted it to, but we had (31) wins for the season, so that’s pretty good and we went to substate, so that’s great.
“I think the season overall was good but next season we’re going to hope to go further than that.”