For three years as a player, Deanna Mayza ’13 embarked on a record-setting career for the Hill girls’ basketball team.  Two years ago, she returned to Gillison Gym, this time a clipboard in hand.  Mayza was Hill’s assistant girls’ basketball coach in 2019-20 and then became Associate Head Coach for the 2020-21 season.  

Next year, she will be able to further impact Hill’s girls’ basketball program.

On May 13, Hill Director of Athletics Seth Eilberg introduced Mayza as the School’s head girls’ basketball coach.  Jen Weissbach, the team’s head coach since the 2015-16 season, will remain with the program as an assistant.

“I am grateful and excited to be the next head girls’ basketball coach at The Hill School,” said Mayza. “It is humbling to have the opportunity to coach a program that gave me so much as a player and I want to give that feeling back to the players within the program. I've played in several states and countries but being back at Hill truly feels like coming home.”

Mayza attended Upper Perkiomen High School for two years before enrolling at Hill as a repeat fourth form student in the fall of 2010.  Arriving at Hill as the reigning Pottstown Mercury “Girls’ Basketball Player of the Year,” Mayza immediately bolstered the team’s offense.  In her fifth form year, Mayza helped lead Hill to the final of both the MAPL and Pennsylvania Independent School state tournaments, earning her second “Player of the Year” distinction.  On January 12, 2013, Mayza reached 1,000 points in a Hill uniform, and later that year against Friends Central she eclipsed the career scoring record of 1,201 points previously held by Maggie Edwards ’06.  She went on to finish her Hill career with 1,222 points in just three seasons, a record that still stands. 

She also graduated as the career scoring leader in girls’ soccer and helped lead the team to two MAPL and two PAISAA Championships, and she was a member of a school record-setting 4x400-meter relay on the track and field team. 

During her sixth form year, Mayza signed a National Letter of Intent to attend and play basketball at the University of Hartford.  The head coach during Mayza’s first three years at Hartford was one of the most prominent point guards in women’s basketball history: Jennifer Rizzotti, a national champion at the University of Connecticut, former WNBA player, and an inductee of the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame.  Mayza thrived under Rizzotti’s tutelage, earning a pair of American East All-Conference selections and graduating with her name in the top-10 of several statistical categories including career points, career three-point field goals made, single-season three-point field goals made, career assists, and career minutes played.  Mayza holds the single-season record for assists with 170.

Fulfilling a lifelong dream, Mayza played professionally in Europe during the 2017-18 season, but ultimately an injury caused her to retire after one season.  She returned to the United States and spent one season as an assistant coach at Montclair State University before the opportunity to return to Hill presented itself. 

A member of Hill’s Athletics Department, next year Mayza also will assume the new responsibility of Athletics Office Operations Coordinator.  She replaces Marian Threadgill, who will retire following 30 years or dedicated service at Hill.