Missouri State women’s basketball players Liza Fruendt, Danielle Gitzen and Alexa Willard earned postseason honors from the Missouri Valley Conference Wednesday. Fruendt repeated on the first team and was joined on that squad by Willard, and Gitzen landed on the all-Defensive Team.
Fruendt has started 29 all Missouri State games this season and averages an MVC-high 16.2 points to go along with 4.1 rebounds and 1.7 assists. The senior guard from Batavia, Ill., has scored in double figures 22 times this year, eclipsing 20 points on nine occasions with a pair of 30-point efforts. Fruendt ranks second in the MVC with 63 3-pointers, and has multiple treys in 16 games. She scored at least 29 points in consecutive games on Jan. 19 and 21, the first MSU player to do that since Jackie Stiles in 2001, and ranks ninth in school history with 1,620 career points.
Willard has also been in the starting lineup for every game this season, ranking sixth in the MVC in field goal percentage (.478) and fourth in 3-point percentage (.387) while averaging 11.2 points and 2.3 rebounds. In Valley games, the sophomore guard shot 50 percent from the floor with averages of 11.7 points and 2.3 boards, and scored in double figures 17 times this year. A native of Lebanon, Mo., Willard earned MVC Player of the Week honors in December during a stretch in which she connected on eight consecutive 3-pointers.
Gitzen has 50 steals on the season and ranks second in league contests at 2.2 steals per outing, including 12 Valley games with multiple thefts. The junior guard from Victoria, Minn., has also drawn 12 charges on the season and led MSU in steals 14 times in her 26 games. Gitzen averages 8.3 points and 4.2 rebounds for the full season, and 8.9 points and 4.7 boards in conference games while ranking seventh in field goal accuracy at 49 percent. She also owns a 1.45 assist-to-turnover ratio.
All-MVC teams were selected by the league’s head coaches, sports information directors, and two media members covering each school. Voters were not allowed to choose players from the school they represented.
The Lady Bears (19-10, 15-3) are the No. 2 seed at this week’s MVC Tournament in Moline, Ill., and open play on Friday at 6 p.m. against the winner of Thursday’s game between No. 7 Bradley and 10th-seeded Evansville.
