Hun hoops grad excels in Division II
Fritsch leads Bentley into national tourney
By Bob Nuse, Sports Editor The Princeton Packet
What looked like some misfortune five years ago for Bentley College
men’s basketball Jay Lawson turned out to be one of the more
fortunate things to happen to the program.
Lawson, the longtime head coach at the Waltham, Mass. school,
thought he had a pretty high-profile recruit lined up in Hamilton
West product Christian Burns. But when Burns decided Division I
Quinnipiac appealed to him more than Division II Bentley, Lawson
was faced with a hole in his recruiting class.
”It was tough to lose a recruit like Christian Burns, but we
had a chance to work out Nate (Fritsch) and it could not have
worked out any better for us,” Lawson said. “Nate has
been a perfect fit for our program.”
After a strong career at Woodberry Forest School in Virginia,
Fritsch spent the 2002-2003 season as a post-graduate with the Hun
School. He averaged 11.7 points per game that year, helping the
Raiders to a 14-10 record that season.
But after his high school career, Fritsch wasn’t sure what he
was going to do until Burns decided to go somewhere other than
Bentley.
”I’m lucky the way it worked out for me,” Fritsch
said. “After my year at Hun I was frustrated with how things
were going. I thought I had a pretty good year at Hun and I really
only had two options coming out of that season. But then Bentley
came into the picture and I was real happy with that.”
His Bentley career didn’t start all that well. He started the
first two games of his freshman season, then suffered a knee injury
that cost him the rest of the season. In his four years since,
he’s been a key part of one of the most successful Division
II programs in the nation.
”As much as it felt bad at the time when he got hurt, to have
him on the team we have this year has been a huge positive,”
Lawson said. “We would not be where we are this year without
him on the team.”
Where Bentley is right now is a perfect 30-0 heading into the
Division II national championship tournament. The Falcons, the No.
1 seed in the Northeast Region, captured their fourth straight
league title — the second time in a row as an undefeated
team.
Bentley will play Merrimack, another Northeast-10 team, on Saturday
at 6 p.m. in the opening round. With a win, the Falcons would face
the winner of the C.W. Post-Bryant game on Sunday. The regional
final is Tuesday.
”If you look at their record the 10 years before, they were
always a good team with a winning record, but more in line with
17-18-19 wins a year,” Fritsch said. “For some reason,
the past four years have been pretty amazing.”
In the last four years, Bentley has compiled an incredible 113-16
record. The Falcons have won at least 30 games three times, and
last year went to the quarterfinals of the Division II tournament.
Throughout the run, Fritsch has been a key contributor to the
success.
”He’s been in the rotation four years and won four
championship,” Lawson said. “No other Bentley player
has done that. He’s highly skilled and intelligent on the
court. I haven’t coached a forward in my 23 years at Bentley
who is more skilled and intelligent on the court than Nate. And
that is just the tip of the iceberg with him.
”His leadership has been as significant as anyone we have had
here. He’s not the most talented player on the team and he
never has been. But the way he plays and the way the other players
respect him has had a huge impact on the success we have had as a
team.”
In his first full season as a red-shirt freshman, Fritsch came off
the bench and averaged 7.3 points and 4.9 rebounds a game. He moved
into the starting lineup as a sophomore and upped his averages to
11.2 points and 6.7 rebounds. Last year he led the team in scoring
and was second in rebounding, earning first team All-Northeast
Region honors.
Fritsch is part of a team that plays well together on the court,
which is a huge reason for their success.
”We have four guys returning from last year that played a lot
of minutes,” said Fritsch, who has come off the bench in all
30 games this season and is third on the team in scoring at 12.7
points per game. “It’s four really talented guys that
can do so many different things. It’s unfair to label any one
of the four of us with any position. We can go late into games and
post up our guards.
”Sometimes when we’re out there, the four other guys on
the court with me all played point guard in high school. So it is a
pretty interesting mix. Even I played point guard when I was
younger in fifth, sixth and seventh grade. So we have guys who know
how to pass the ball and find other guys for good shots.”
Bentley is able to play the way it plays in large part due to the
versatility of Fritsch, who at 6-foot-6 is often called on to play
center for the Falcons.
”When we play he’s the tallest player on the floor for
us most of the time,” Lawson said. “And it’s not
like we’re playing with (Robert) Parish and (Kevin) McHale,
it’s more like we have Larry Bird at center. Most of the time
he’s out there with four guards, so it’s really like we
have five guard on the floor.
”If he were playing at the low Division I level, he’d
be a perfect ‘3’ for most teams.”
Instead, he’s the perfect player for a Bentley team with its
eye on another trip to the Elite 8.
”He is the only one that has been in the rotation the last
four years,” Lawson said. “He’s the one with the
most career wins and he’s played in the most games. He has a
lot of the stats, but they don’t begin to tell the story with
Nate. He’s just as likely to make a key pass or make free
throws at the end of the game. He plays tough defense in the post.
He does so many of the things that you just don’t see with
the stats. He’s the anchor of our defense.
”Nate has good athletic ability. He was a high jump champ
before he ever got to Bentley. But the biggest thing with him is
his basketball IQ. We scrimmage some low Division I teams and there
is no doubt that if he played in the Ivy or the Patriot League or
some of the other lower Division I leagues, he would be a starting
player for them. That’s the level of player he has become.
He’s a very good player who slipped through the cracks and we
benefited from that.”
For Fritsch and Bentley, it was a perfect match.
”I came in as a freshman and didn’t know much about
Division II basketball because I was recruited mostly by low
Division I and Division III schools,” the Durham, N.C.
resident said. “Back in North Carolina, the Division II
schools were mostly the historically black schools like John T.
Smith, North Carolina Central. My idea of Division II mostly came
from those schools, with undersized, skilled players at most
positions.”
Now, Fritsch is coming to the close of a very successful career in
Division II. He’s not sure what the future might hold, but he
knows he made the right college choice.
”Last year we won our conference tournament as well and we
made it to the Elite 8,” Fritsch said. “We won our
region and then we lost to Winona State, which was the defending
national champion at the time and was also undefeated. They had the
national player of the year. We were the last two undefeated teams
left when we played that game.”
This year, Bentley is undefeated again heading into the national
tournament. It’s been quite a run for Fritsch, who used his
one year at Hun to help himself find the perfect spot.
”I have some great memories from that year,” he said.
“We beat St. Benedict’s and we played against some real
good teams. That year was a lot of fun for me, playing with those
guys and playing for Coach (Jonathan) Stone.”
Now he’s got what he hopes are six more games left in his
career. One that could end with Bentley playing for a national
title.