The Freedom baseball team is less than one week away from kicking off the 2018 spring season. Last season, to the surprise of most, Freedom fell short of a District Championship. This year, the team is out to prove that last year’s deep playoff run wasn’t a fluke.

As he entered the fall season, Coach B. was tasked with assembling a team with a new look, following the departure of multiple upperclassmen.

Some of those new faces included three seniors, right handed pitcher Matt Gaffney, center fielder Eliel Martinez, and right handed pitcher Matt Bogdanoff.

The trio was brought in to bolster an already strong Patriots pitching staff and defense, but Martinez and Gaffney are no slouches at the plate and seek to be pivotal points in the Patriots offense.

Despite many new faces, the team quickly jelled and finished the fall season riding a four game winning streak including a three game sweep in the University of Tampa Fall Baseball Tournament.

“Last spring we got a taste of what we can accomplish and we haven’t stopped working since,” said shortstop Jeremy Carrick, 11. “The team has greatly improved over the past year and this fall we showed people what Freedom baseball can do.”

While Coach B. is excited about the strides the team displayed in the fall, he recognizes that there is still more room for improvement.

“I’m extremely impressed with the progression the team’s made but we’re still not at the level we need to be at,” said Coach B. “We aren’t the type of team that’ll score a ton of runs so it’s vital that we manufacture runs when given the opportunity whether that’s with a bunt or a base hit.”

Even with the Patriots’ recent success, many critics still view the team as underdogs.

“We’re going to shock a lot of people this spring,” said team captain Andrew Wise, 12. “They haven’t seen the work this team’s been putting in day in and day out. This team is more prepared than ever to make a run at districts this season.”

Freedom’s first game of the season will take place at home on Tuesday, February 20^th against Chamberlain at 7pm.