ANDERSON, Ind. —
A quick conversation with Highland’s Chase Freeman and you come away knowing one thing, if nothing else about him: he loves the game of baseball.
“It’s the best, my favorite sport. I like everything about it,” Freeman said.
Take that love for the game and add in a work ethic that few can match and you have The Herald Bulletin’s Player of the Year for the 2010 baseball season.
In his final campaign with the Scots, the Murray State-bound Freeman hit .447 with six home runs, 44 RBI, stole 14 bases and struck out only 10 times as the Scots won 23 ball games this year.
“When he’s out there you have to know where he’s at in the order,” Scotscoach Matt Bair said. “He constantly came up with the big hit.”
A fixture for three years in the No. 3 spot in the batting order, Freeman took his natural talent for the game and developed it into not only a good baseball player but a team leader.
“He’s a great leader in practice, he makes everybody better,” Bair said. “We would not have been the team that we were without him.”
Continued development of his skills has led to success at each level that Freeman has played the game at. It’s that work ethic that he believes will carry him through the inevitable valleys that come with the peaks in athletics.
“If I’m struggling in any area of the game, I won’t be struggling at it for very long. That I can promise you,” said Freeman.
“He’s a self-made player,” Bair said. “He put in the time to make himself the player he is. I think he’s made himself bigger and faster and I think you’ll see him turn into a prototypical draft guy (in college). I think Murray State landed themselves a draftable player.”
In a season where the Scots won 23 games and were ranked in the top 10 in Class 4A, motivation wasn’t hard to find. The fact of this being the last year for Highland High School wasn’t as big a factor as one would think, however.
The decision to close Highland as a high school and convert into a middle school came in December. By the time baseball season rolled around in the spring, the news was still a punch that landed but it wasn’t as much of an impact to the baseball team as it might have once been.
“I don’t know that they focused on that,” Bair said. “They focused more on the group. They had to play hard because they don’t want to let each other down.”
“I was playing with my best friends,” Freeman said. “We tried not to worry about it. Everbody like each other and that’s what we were playing for.”
High School Sports
Related Photos
-
Highland's Chase Freeman fields a hit as the Scots hosted Alexandria for a double header in this file photo taken Saturday May 15th 2010.
Discussion
Freeman chases down honor
Highland standout named THB's Player of the Year
- High School Sports
-
-
Tribe triumphs
The Anderson Lady Tribe brought their best defense in Friday night’s semifinal battle against New Castle and rolled to a 56-31 victory to advance to the final of Class 4A Sectional 9 against Pendleton Heights.
-
Wertz rallies Arabians to final
Pendleton Heights junior guard Tiffany Wertz sparked a fourth-quarter rally in girls sectional basketball play Friday and lifted the Arabians into tonight’s title game. PH scored 29 points in the fourth quarter and erased a six-point deficit with five minutes to play in a 63-51 win over Richmond.
-
Broncos advance to finals
Daleville’s girls basketball team pounded Wes-Del for a third time this season, defeating the Warriors 39-11 to earn a berth in the sectional championship tonight against Southern Wells.
-
Winchester's final run fells Frankton
Girls basketball season came to an end Friday for the Frankton Eagles, but it didn’t end quietly. Frankton fell to the Winchester Golden Falcons 60-51 in the Class 2A Sectional 40 semifinals at Shenandoah High School.
-
Elwood better but can't best Tipton
While the final score of 80-46 may not indicate it, there were some improvements for the Elwood girls basketball team in its rematch against the Tipton Blue Devils on Friday night in the semifinals of the Class 2A Sectional 39 at Madison-Grant.
-
Argylls' season runs out of gas in semis
It would not be too hard to pinpoint exactly when things went wrong for the Madison-Grant girls basketball team Friday night in its sectional semifinal game against Eastern. However, identifying the cause of the team’s struggles would be more difficult. The Argylls’ hung tough for three quarters of the game, but fell apart in the fourth with a perfect storm of problems, resulting to a 56-38 loss to end their season.
-
Indians advance to finals
Photos from the sectional semifinal at Greenfield-Central on Friday.
-
Arabians come from behind to beat Red Devils
Photos from the sectional semifinal at Greenfield-Central on Friday.
-
Bearcats upend AHS
Often basketball is a simple game, and it was certainly true for the Anderson boys basketball team here Thursday night. “We had too many turnovers — that’s the game,” said AHS coach Joe Nadaline after the Indians lost to Muncie Central 54-46 for their eighth straight defeat.
-
Bulldogs topple Raiders, win 9th in a row
The Bulldogs keep on rolling. Lapel (16-3) led from start to finish as it beat visiting Shenandoah 69-47 Thursday night to push its winning streak to nine games.
- More High School Sports Headlines
-
