Batavia's Fruendt finishes record-setting career on top
When we last left off with the Fruendt sibling bragging rights in our 2012-13 Liza Fruendt All-Area Captain feature, she and her brother Nick were taking out their competitive juices on the tennis courts during spring break in Mexico.
A year has passed, it's now time for our 2013-14 Liza Fruendt All-Area Captain feature, and she and her older brother have been at it again.
During a senior season for the ages that saw Liza break Batavia's all-time scoring record, single season and single game marks while leading her team to just as many milestones, Nick's own record-setting career came under assault from his youngest sister.
There were Liza's 766 points this year that topped his best - a 24.7 average. Her 1,921 career points passed Nick's 1,849.
And while nothing will change Nick being one of the all-time best to play at Batavia on his way to a college career at Northwestern, he never had a night - nor had any boy or girl in Batavia's long and storied basketball history - like Liza's 51 points against Geneva.
But while Liza put her name at the top of nearly every possible Batavia record, that didn't mean the sibling rivalry went quietly.
"The first thing he said to me was, 'I still have more career wins than you,'" Liza Fruendt laughed. "I was like, OK, all right Nick. He always gives me little jabs, all fun and games.
"I'm so thankful to have the support system I do. I grew up watching him and (sister) Sara and they are both very supportive and cheer me on and get to as many games as they can or watch online."
Oh what a night
There was so much to watch during Batavia's season, none more memorable than a 75-68 win over Geneva in January, a game broadcast on BATV.
Liza made 3s from everywhere that night - 6 in all - while also getting to the rim for scores and to the free-throw line 18 times, making 15.
"In the locker room somebody came in and said 'Hey coach, do you realize how many she had?'" Batavia coach Kevin Jensen recalled. "I am in the middle of my postgame speech and my assistant said, 'You have to see this.'
"I still can't believe it was going on. She didn't force shots. Even if she took some deep ones she was in rhythm, she got to the hole a lot, nothing was out of control. It seemed everything was coming so easy that night. You know Geneva is a good defensive club, we just saw it. It's not like they were giving anything to her.
"That night Liza was not going to let us lose. There are some teams that can't get to 51 if they are by themselves in the gym."
Word spread fast - including down to Springfield, Missouri where Fruendt will play college basketball next year at Missouri State under coach Kellie Harper, a three-time national champion from 1996-98 as a player at Tennessee (known then as Kellie Jolly).
"When that happened I remember the next morning my assistant came up to me and said, 'Did you hear what Liza did?'" Harper said. "I thought, wow. Really, really impressed and happy for her. She's such a good person and works so hard and I'm glad she's got notoriety for her talents. We kept up with how she was scoring so much this year and doing a marvelous job."
Fruendt remembered her phone "blowing up" after the game. She took in congrats from well-wishers, watched the boys game that followed and went out to dinner with her teammates.
"It was a cool moment," Fruendt said. "There were so many people reaching out to you. It makes all the time worth it. It was overwhelming but definitely really cool. It was the whole community of Batavia saying congrats that we beat them again. It was cool in the personal aspect and our team that got them twice."
Season of milestones
It's certainly been a highlight-filled 10 years for Joel and Suzanne Fruendt's three basketball-playing children Nick, Sara and now Liza, who was part of a team Jensen called quite possibly the best in school history.
Batavia finished 21-10 and won a share of the Upstate Eight Conference championship while beating Geneva twice, the first time any of that had happened in six years.
The even bigger firsts came in the postseason - their first regional championship since 1990 and their first sectional win.
Before the season Fruendt had never won even a regional semifinal game while helping grow a program that went from 8 wins her freshman year to 13 as a sophomore to 18 last year.
"It was a lot of fun," Fruendt said. "It was very memorable. We accomplished a lot as a team and overall we did things a lot of people didn't think we'd do."
Fruendt made a similar climb as an individual. She led Batavia in scoring as a freshman but at 8 points a game, a number that steadily rose as she began working with trainer Jeff Pagliocca to 14.2 as a sophomore, 19.7 her junior year and 24.7 this year.
"My trainer made me realize a lot," Fruendt said. "There's so much you can go get, it's a matter if you want to work for it. I didn't even know until this year what the school record was. It was just a matter of always improving and trying my best."
Fruendt played in 31 games and had at least 20 points in 26 of them. She scored over 30 points eight times.
She also topped Batavia in assists (3.6 a game), steals (3.4 a game), 3-point baskets (105) and free-throw percentage (81 percent) while shooting 44 percent from the field. Fruendt made 80 3-pointers as a junior.
"This season for her I would never have imagined it would be like this," Jensen said. "From 19 points to think somebody could average 25 a game, it seems reasonable to make some improvements, but really? Am I expecting this person to get 25 points a game? I don't think I could ever have expected that.
"The time she put in the off-season, during the season, I really doubt anybody in the state put in more time than she did."
Scoring got harder late in the season after her 51-point game garnered so much attention. Teams that had played Batavia already threw one junk defense after another at her. The Bulldogs finally got a look at three first-time opponents in the postseason and she scored 34, 24 and 31 points.
Fruendt's season, and career, came to an end in the sectional final against rival Geneva. The Vikings made sure Fruendt never had an open look and held her to 10 points, the second-lowest total of her season.
"That last game she struggled a little bit but that was five players on the opposition that all they cared about was stopping her," Jensen said. "That was really about the only way you could stop her. You could talk about playing good team defense but it was kind of everybody concentrated on her and that was the one thing that slowed her down."
Fruendt gave props to the Vikings who followed their Batavia win by crushing Rockford Boylan and will play Friday in the Class 4A state semifinals.
"It's really hard to beat a team three teams and it's not easy when they've won like 13 games in a row," Fruendt said. "We beat them twice and thought we could do it again but we got caught on a bad night. We didn't play our best basketball, and they are playing awesome right now."
Bright future as a Lady Bear
All four Missouri State coaches came to watch Fruendt play in January against Streamwood. Liza's mom made them dinner, and the next day the Fruendts watched Missouri State's game at Loyola.
Fruendt was one of the first recruits Harper landed after taking the Missouri State job (she previously was the coach at North Carolina State). Jensen helped start the process.
"We watched some film on her and really liked her and wanted to make sure we got out to see her this summer," Harper said. "I remember the first time I saw her I just fell in love with her. She plays so hard and has so much energy and is a competitor. She knocked down 3s, she drove to the basket, she was just a really good player. From the first moment I saw her I knew I wanted to coach her."
Fruendt visited the school in August and committed right after. She liked the support the team got in the community and loved the coaching staff that includes assistant Jackie Stiles, an alum and the NCAA's all-time leading scorer.
"They went very quickly from 'We'll take a look at this girl' to 'I can't believe we have her,'" Jensen said. "If this wouldn't have worked out for her, I guarantee there would have been all kinds of people knocking at her door throughout the season. I firmly believe she could play in the Big Ten. I think this is going to be a good fit for her."
Harper certainly agrees.
"I was thrilled," Harper said. "We thought she would be a great addition on and off the court for our program. It was really important our first class is exactly what we wanted in terms of the culture we are trying to build here. She really does that for us."
Fruendt graduates from Batavia on May 21 and leaves for college June 6. Planning to major in business, Fruendt will take two classes this summer and start working out with the team.
She is part of a four-player freshman class. The other three are all on the same AAU team from Missouri.
"I'm kind of the weird one from Illinois," Fruendt joked. "Jackie Stiles knows what it's like to bring your game to the next level. I think next year I'll have a pretty good opportunity to go in and do the best I can to help them out."
Missouri State is currently 13-15, and Harper is counting on Fruendt to play immediately.
"The fact she can score, she can defend, she always is going to play hard," Harper said. "All those qualities will get her on the court early. We'll have some pretty high expectations for her. There's always an adjustment for freshmen but I think her background in basketball she'll adjust quickly."
"She's not going to have to play the way she did here," Jensen offered. "She'll have outstanding players around her. I think her game will just grow to the point where she will make very good decisions on both sides of the floor because she doesn't feel like she has to make a special play every single second. She is an outstanding catch-and-shoot player and can get the ball off in a split second. I think that's going to be huge for."
Having just played her last high school game a week ago, it's still a new feeling to look at her Batavia career in the past tense.
Fruendt and her best friend and Batavia teammate Erin Bayram took in the Whitney Young-Neuqua Valley supersectional Monday where some perspective started to sink in.
"At that point it did hit me a little more I will never play on a high school floor again and the next time I play organized basketball will be collegiately," Fruendt said. "It's bittersweet. I've had some amazing times in high school basketball and now I get to try to do it at the college level which is pretty cool. Erin and I said we are very blessed we get to go to the next level where a lot of the girls don't get that opportunity."
And what about the basketball fans who have watched Liza Fruendt the past four years when she starts raining 3s from NBA range? The fans who have seen her take a steal the other way for a breakaway layup, or work relentlessly to make the most of her ability, or find a way to will her team to victory?
We feel just as blessed.