Freeland claimed its first Little League Junior baseball district title, knocking off Midland in a landmark victory. But the Little League Junior team (14-under) could not make the next move after, dropping a doubleheader to Taylor North, 18-8 and 12-4, in the best-of-3 sectional round.
“This was such a special experience for us and for these kids” Freeland coach Chad Schuette said. “These kids have shown so much determination. We lost, but they have to feel good about what they accomplished and about the support the community gave them. That was evident with all the people here to watch them.”
“These guys are like family to us,” Schuette said. “There’s just something about these guys. They have heart like I’ve never seen.”
"For a long time, Midland and Mount Pleasant/Union Township have ruled the roost,” Schuette said. “We have a much smaller pool of players to pick from than the bigger programs. We only had two teams in Freeland … 28 kids. We picked 11 for our all-star team, so almost half of the players were on the all-star team.”
In the first game, Jake Metiva had two hits, with Liam Rump driving in three runs. Tucker Hileman scored two runs. In the second game, Connor Lasceski hit a double and scored two runs, with Carter McLaren drawing two walks.
“Taylor can hit, but we didn’t have our best day in the field with our defense,” Schuette said. “We made mistakes that we usually don’t make. Everything kind of caught up with us at once, but we kept pecking away at the lead until we just ran out of time.
“The players should be very proud of what they’ve done, and we all should be excited about our future. Taylor had a lot of older kids, big kids. Of our 11 players, only four were 14-year-olds. The rest were 13. This was a great experience, something that we can build on for the future.”