Stepping into a leading role, Seton Hill's Frye continues to score at a prolific rate

Besides other things she does well on the basketball court, Christiane Frye is at her best when she scores.

That’s how it was when she played high school hoops at Central Valley. When she graduated in 2020, she left as the Warriors’ all-time leading scorer with 1,504 points.

That’s how it is now for her at the college level.

As a 5-foot-5 junior guard at Seton Hill University, Frye leads the team in scoring at 16.5 points per game. She ranks sixth in the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference, which is comprised of 18 NCAA Division II programs throughout the commonwealth.

With 608 points so far in her first two seasons at Seton Hill, she’s well on her way to becoming a 1,000-point scorer in college.

“I feel good about the way I’m playing,” Frye said. “But obviously, I couldn’t do it without the other four players on the court.”

As a Central Valley senior, Frye averaged 20.1 points per game, earned third-team all-state honors in Class 4A and was named the Beaver County Times’ Co-Girls Basketball Player of the Year. She shared that award with Blackhawk’s Mackenzie Amalia, who’s now playing at Robert Morris.

As a Central Valley senior, Frye didn’t waste any time during her recruiting process.

“I always told my dad that the first school that offers me a scholarship, I’m going to take it and run with it,” she said. “And it happened to be Seton Hill.”

When coach Mark Katarski called to offer Frye a scholarship, she said yes on the spot.

Four years later, Katarski is glad she did.

“We were really drawn to Christiane the first time we saw her play,” Katarski said. “When we watched her play in high school, her biggest skill is that she wins and that she cares about winning and cares about the team. Those are things that really drew us to her.”

In high school, Frye played on teams that went 15-9, 17-7, 23-3 and 19-5. The Warriors made the playoffs all four years and advanced to the WPIAL championship game in 2019 and the semifinals in 2018 and ’20.

Since she’s been at Seton Hill, which is located in Greensburg, she’s also been part of a winning formula.

The COVID-19 pandemic wiped out the entire 2020-2021 season in the PSAC. But last year, the Griffins were 21-11 overall and 15-7 in the PSAC, and are 17-10 and 10-8 so far this season.

“Christiane is having a wonderful experience here,” Katarski said.

Last year on a senior-oriented team, Frye was Seton Hill’s sixth man. She played in 31 of 32 games with four starts. She was fourth on the team in minutes played with 25.4 per game, but was second on the team in scoring at 10.3 points per game.

She was named PSAC West Division Rookie of the Year and earned second-team all-conference honors.

This year with a much younger rotation, she leads the team in playing time (31.7 minutes per game) and shots taken (273), as well as her 16.5 points-per-game average.

“It’s easy to say she’s had two good years here and that she continues to improve from her sophomore season when he was a PSAC Rookie of the Year and a conference all-star,” Katarski said. “But she’s really had two different experiences.

“Last year, we had five senior starters and eight seniors in all, so Christiane was our sixth person. She came off the bench and was awesome in that capacity.

“Then you fast forward a year and those eight seniors and five starters are gone. We had 13 players on our roster at the start of the year who’ve never played a game here, so it really changed how the game felt for Christiane. She basically had to reinvent herself and allow herself to be challenged.”

Frye accepted that challenge and has become a steadying force on a team that has four freshmen among the top eight players in the rotation.

She proved that Monday night when she drove for a layup with 10.7 seconds left to give Seton Hill a 72-71 road win at Clarion.

She proved that again Wednesday night in a 101-99 double-overtime loss at Edinboro by scoring a career-high 39 points. That's the third-highest single-game scoring output in the PSAC this season.

“I’ve had to deal with some injuries,” Frye said of an ankle injury that forced her to miss seven games in late November and early December. “But I’m definitely having fun.”

Frye is the second Central Valley graduate in recent years to rank among PSAC scoring leaders.

Seairra Barrett, a 2014 CV grad who’s the Warriors second-leading all-time scorer, went on to become a scoring machine at California University of Pennsylvania. Barrett, who’s now the women’s basketball coach at the Community of Beaver County, ranked 20th, third and third in the PSAC in scoring with averages of 13.9, 18.6 and 21.3 during her career with the Vulcans.

“I’ve been fortunate to be able to play college basketball,” said Frye, who’s majoring in Marketing and minoring in Finance. “It’s allowed for a lot of growth as an athlete and as a person.”

Frye has two more years of eligibility and possibly a third. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the NCAA granted athletes an extra year of eligibility if they choose to use it.

At this stage of her college career, it is way too early for Frye to decide if she’ll play a fifth season.

This article originally appeared on Beaver County Times: Stepping into a leading role, Seton Hill's Frye continues to score at a prolific rate