Addie Grace Porter always expected sports to be part of her story beyond high school.
Basketball just so happened to be the avenue taken by Porter, a 5-foot-4 freshman guard for the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga who stayed in state after starring for Nashville-area program Lebanon during her prep days.
If it wasn't basketball, Porter said recently she likely would have chosen volleyball, a sport in which she was a district MVP as a libero and helped Lebanon to three district titles. If neither of those worked out? She was also an all-district player in softball.
"Big sports girl," she said.
But basketball became the answer to collegiate athletics for Porter, who helped lead the Devilettes to a TSSAA Class AAA runner-up finish in 2021, earning all-state honors in the process. And it was her spunky, tough nature that caught the eye of UTC coach Katie Burrows and her staff.
Burrows said in the preseason that Porter was brought in to give an additional spark to the Mocs, noting the shortest player on the team had one of the biggest personalities. But much like the team - with six freshmen on the roster and no seniors - Porter struggled early against a difficult nonconference schedule but has settled in more over the past few weeks.
UTC was 2-13 on Dec. 30 and dropped its Southern Conference opener nine days later at Mercer, where illness left the shorthanded Mocs without two starters. From there, they won four straight before falling 76-53 at Wofford on Thursday night, dropping the Mocs to 6-15 overall and 4-2 in the league and bumping the Terriers to 9-10, 4-1.
Abbey Cornelius led the Mocs with 14 points, while Karsen Murphy chipped in 10, Amaria Pugh nine and Brooke Hampel eight. Sigrun Olafsdottir was scoreless but had seven rebounds, four assists and two steals.
Porter, who has eight starts this season but has taken on a reserve role of late, has been part of the team's growth. Her contributions were limited in 17 minutes at Wofford, but like the Mocs, she is a work in progress.
"I love her grit defensively. She's strong; she gets after it," Burrows, in her fourth season leading her alma mater, said last week. "She's going to dive on the floor, she's going to go get some loose rebounds. She's learning how to get herself out of situations. If I bail her out, she'll never learn. But she's so coachable - she listens and tries to do everything we ask her to do when we ask her to do it, to the best of her ability
"Does she always get it right? No, she's human, but she's going to try and she wants to do the right things for her teammates."
Burrows said Porter also isn't afraid to speak up and challenge teammates, which is uncommon for a freshman.
"I played that role with my high school team, so it's really just keeping it rolling into college," Porter said last week. "Even though you're a freshman, you can still do big stuff; it doesn't really matter. I think with the girls here, they respect everybody. It doesn't matter what grade or anything, so I feel like they take anything well from anybody.
"It's just whatever's making the team better."
Entering Thursday's game, Porter was ninth in the SoCon in steals per game (1.3), while also averaging 6.1 points and just less than two assists per contest. Her 3.5 rebounds per game to that point ranked third on the team.
Lebanon was 61-10 in Porter's final two seasons, both of which ended in the state tournament. Obviously, the start to her college career - which has included some unexpected player defections both prior and during the season - hasn't brought that level of success in winning percentage, but multiple UTC players have said the challenges of this season have bonded the team together.
It's starting to show with better performances on the court as the current Mocs seek to uphold the standard of a program that has won the SoCon title 22 times in the regular season and 18 times at the league tournament.
"We had a team meeting about it, and we looked back at Chattanooga history and everything like that, and all the winning they had," said Porter, who referenced a quote from former UTC coach Jim Foster, the Women's Basketball Hall of Famer who retired four years ago, when he said in a news conference that he "wanted to be playing in March."
Foster emphasized the importance of putting together a tough nonconference schedule to prepare for the grind of the rest of the season and - hopefully - success at tournament time.
"That was one thing that really stuck out to me," Porter said, "because even though we're going through all these losses and everything, we knew in the end it was going to make us better and make us prepared for March, because at the end of the day, that's when you want to be playing.
"I feel like you don't want to peak at the wrong time, so I feel like we're probably on an uphill climb right now. We haven't hit the peak yet, but we're getting there, and hopefully we'll peak at the right time."
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @genehenley3.