Lina
Sontag

Lina Sontag comes from Kleinmachnow in Brandenburg and played in the youth system of TuS Lichterfelde in Berlin, where she won three German youth championships. In the 2019/20 season she was named the best player of the Weibliche Nachwuchs-Basketball-Bundesliga.

In the summer of 2021 the 191 cm forward joined Bundesliga club USC Freiburg together with her Lichterfelde teammate Martha Pietsch. In May 2022 she won the German championship with the team and was voted the league's Rookie of the Year. She then went to the United States to begin her studies at the University of California, Los Angeles, and played for the UCLA Bruins in the 2022-23 and 2023-24 seasons. She returned to USC Freiburg in 2024, and in the 2025/26 season she played for GiroLive-Panthers Osnabrück in the Bundesliga. In June 2026 she moved to Cadí La Seu in the Spanish Liga Femenina de Baloncesto.

Sontag made her first senior appearance for Germany in November 2020, shortly before her 17th birthday. Earlier she had been part of youth national teams, including the U16 European Championships in 2018 and 2019 and the 2022 U20 European Championship. At the 2023 EuroBasket in Israel and Slovenia, Germany finished sixth with her in the squad. At the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, the team reached the quarterfinals in its first Olympic basketball tournament, losing to the hosts 84-71. At the 2026 World Cup in Berlin, Germany finished fourth in September 2026, the best result ever for a German women's team at a World Cup.