Precocious Freshmen Basketball-Wise Beyond Their Years

SAN DIEGO — Christian High guard Tiffany Stutz recorded a triple-double last Friday in a girls’ basketball game against San Diego: 20 points, a school-record 17 steals and 12 assists.

The same day in a boys’ game against Lincoln, Hoover’s Alex Davis scored 25 points and had 10 rebounds and 5 assists.

While the numbers are hardly astonishing for high school varsity basketball, consider:

Tiffany Stutz is 14 years old, Alex Davis 15.

Both are freshmen, and they are making more than just token contributions to their teams this season.

Stutz leads Christian in scoring with a 16.2 average, second in the City Central League. Davis is Hoover’s second-leading scorer with an 11.2 average.

They are not alone. Both have freshman teammates--Trisha Montgomery at Christian at Tony Maxwell at Hoover--averaging 8 points a game. Chris Miller, Fallbrook’s leading scorer at 10 points per game, is the only other freshman boy playing varsity in San Diego County. But the girls’ game has 13 others.

In the Avocado League, El Camino’s Heather Bassett averages 10 points and 9 rebounds, and Valerie Ryan scores five a game for San Pasqual. Jennifer Yerkey (Granite Hills) and Heather Holm (El Cajon Valley) play in the Grossmont Conference.

The Metro Conference has five ninth-grade girls: Autumn Bailey (Castle Park), Jennifer Benitez (Chula Vista), Tameeka Hall (Southwest), Jennifer Reyes (Marian) and Adanya Guevara (Marian). Kamilah Gipson (Morse) and Audrey Cooper (Serra) represent the City Eastern League, Allison Brady (Poway) the Palomar and Marguerite Trevino (Our Lady of Peace) the City Central.

While Stutz and Davis have the most impressive statistics, all are playing significant roles on their teams. Freshman not doing so, most coaches feel, would be better off with the junior varsity or freshman team.

Stutz’s production was counted on long before the season began. “I used to watch her, as an eighth grader, play and score 40 points a game in 3 quarters,” said Rod Bell, Christian’s coach.

Two weeks ago in a game against Crawford, Stutz had 28 points, 11 steals and 8 assists. She was on her way to equaling her season-high of 30 points and possibly a triple-double when she was fouled from behind on a break-away.

Stutz had to be carried off the court and taken to the hospital, where doctors diagnosed her as having a severe contusion on her left kneecap. She missed the next two games but returned in triple-double fashion against San Diego.

“Being a freshman, I didn’t really think I would be on varsity,” Stutz said. “I’m surprised with all that’s happening.”

She shouldn’t have been. Stutz was an outside hitter on Christian’s City Central champion volleyball team. She also plays softball, runs the mile and 2-mile in track and has won numerous junior tennis tournaments around the county. In her first semester at Christian, she earned a 3.5 grade-point-average after finishing Christ Lutheran grade school with a 4.0.

“I have to admit, sports are a really big part of my life,” Stutz said. “But so are my religion and my friends. I don’t want people to know me because I play sports. I want them to know me for who I am. I’m a pretty sociable person. I like going out to the movies or going shopping. I love going shopping.”

Stutz, 5-feet 6-inches, with long blonde hair, braces on her teeth and an ever-present adolescent bounce in her step and speech, looks her age and admits she acts like a typical freshman.

In contrast, Davis, who is 6-2 and 200 pounds, is a muscular man-child. Hoover Coach Hal Mitrovich likes to compare him to Davis’ uncle, Andre Hardy, a former Hoover star and NFL running back with the Philadelphia Eagles, Seattle Seahawks and San Francisco 49ers.

“The guys on the team always tell me I look 30 years old,” Davis said, “and that I should be collecting a pension check.”

Mitrovich says Davis not only looks older than he is but also acts in a mature fashion for a 15-year-old. Mitrovich said he named Davis co-captain for the Lincoln game and had Davis give a talk to the other players about how to prepare for a game.

Mitrovich said, “I thought to myself, ‘Should I do this? Maybe that’s putting too much pressure on him?’ ”

Davis responded with his biggest game of the year, in a 119-74 loss. “Davis led the way,” Mitrovich said. “He was the one we wanted to get the ball to. And he wanted the ball. Maybe, if we had a really experienced, really talented team, he might be a sixth man. He’s legitimate.”

Like Stutz, Davis is not one-dimensional. He also plays baseball and this fall split time with varsity and junior varsity football as a running back, linebacker and kicker.

“My uncle would make me play with the older guys,” Davis said. “He could see it in me that I could play sports. I owe a lot to him, Coach Mitrovich and Dave Mitrovich (Hal’s son, a Hoover assistant coach).”

Davis adds, “I was surprised with the fact that I could play varsity here. But if you put your mind to it, you can do anything.”