Softball
Favorite athlete: Lauren Chamberlain
Favorite team: USA Softball Women's National Team
Favorite memory competing in sports: Last summer at Nationals, my travel team went 1-2 during pool play. We needed to win three straight games the following day to stay in the winner’s bracket, and if not, we would've had to play up to five or six games. Our first game we won on a walk-off walk! Our second game we came back from a 3-0 deficit by getting clutch hits, winning 4-3. Then our last game of the day we won 4-1. We considered ourselves "entertainers" because we always waited until the last inning to produce our runs. These games will always stick in my mind because they were all a total team effort and also so much fun.
Most embarrassing/funniest thing that has happened while competing in sports: I tend to be a big goofball when it comes to tense situations. I always try and find a positive in a situation and joke about it. My teammates seem to think my jokes are extremely corny, but it helps! Oh, one time back in middle school, I was rounding third and completely face planted...I then proceeded to crawl back to third. Needless to say, some of my teammates still haven't let me live that down!
Music on iPod: Country and alternative
Future plans: I plan to attend Misericordia University where I will pursue a degree in Physical Therapy. I also plan to play softball at MU.
Words to live by: "Life will always throw you curves, just keep fouling them off...the right pitch will come, but when it does, be prepared to run the bases."
One goal before turning 30: Get my degree in physical therapy, and possibly open my own practice in a German-speaking country while raising a family of my own.
One thing people don't know about me: I have taken five years of German, and I plan to continue studying it in college so that I can travel to Germany one day and be fluent.
By GORDON GLANTZ
Jenn Freeman is so quick with a quip at strange times that she openly wonders if her coach, Scott Ludlow, will even miss her when her fourth and final Upper Moreland softball season comes to an end.
“I’m definitely a positive person,” she said. “At games, I just crack these random jokes. I don’t know if (Ludlow) can get rid of me quick enough.”
In vintage form, the Univest Featured Female Athlete of the Week is half-serious and half-joking – and it’s hard to immediately know where one begins and one ends.
Unless you know her as well as Ludlow does.
“There’s always moments with her,” said Ludlow. “That statement is exactly the kind of thing she would say. There is always a little bit of levity with her. She’s always good for a laugh. She’s a calming influence. She keeps everybody on the team level-headed.”
“I will absolutely be sorry to see her go. Everybody will be sorry to see her go.”
He sees her happy-go-lucky spirit as a snapshot of what makes Freeman, who ranks second in her class, successful as a student-athlete and member of the Upper Moreland school community.
“She has things in perspective,” he said. “She understands that it’s only softball. Don’t get me wrong. She plays hard and plays to win, but she also sees the big picture.”
Asked for an example, the incoming freshman at Misericordia University is finally tongue-tied – for a few seconds, at least.
“I’ve said so many crazy things, I can’t pick out just one,” she said, before citing a recent example during a grudge match against and previously unbeaten Upper Merion team that had tamed the Golden Bears, 4-1, earlier in the season.
“We were down, something like 15-9, and we were gathering around. I said something about revenge being sweet and candy. Everyone starting hitting and we rallied to win, 21-20. That was fun.”
Freeman helped extend her plentiful career Wednesday with a key two-run single, one that turned out to be the winning hit, as the Golden Bears edged Gwynedd Mercy Academy, 7-6, to advance in the PIAA District 1 playoffs.
Entering the GMA game, Freeman was boasting a .405 average with 12 runs scored from her position (Ludlow often pinch runs for her) and 13 RBI. She has one home run and six doubles, and blames her home field for that.
“I’ve had a lot of close calls, a lot of balls hit to the fence,” she said. “Our field is at the top of a hill and the wind knocks everything down.”
Ludlow called Freeman one of the “best bunters” on the team and has deployed that skill to surprise teams not expecting sacrifices – or squeeze plays -- from a clean-up hitter.
“She just kept maturing as a softball player,” he said. “Hitting-wise, especially – just with her approach and her confidence. A lot has to do with the mental part of the game. She has a mental edge and approach. She never looks intimidated.”
Like A Rock
After her heroics against GMA, Freeman was quoted as saying she wasn’t ready for her high school career to end. Yet, at some point soon, a stint that began by making the varsity squad as a freshman will be over.
“It has gone by faster than I thought,” said Freeman. “I’ve had a good time at Upper Moreland.”
She said it kind of hit her – much like a pitch (she is a self-confessed “ball-magnet,” having been hit by a pitch six times this season) – when practicing for the GMA game.
“It was really overwhelming,” she explained. “I realized to could be one of my last practices.
“All positives have come out of this. I’ve made a lot of friends and become a better player.”
Ludlow says that Freeman has been a “rock for the last four years,” having started at first base immediately and filling the all-important clean-up spot on his line-up card the last three years.
“She has been one of the constants over the last four years,” he said. “That was one position that I never had to worry about.
“We’re clearly going to have some big shoes to fill. For four years, she was the one constant you could count on.”
Ludlow says that Freeman understood and “knew her place” as a freshman but came out of her shell and emerged as a team leader as an upperclassman before assuming an official title as a team captain as a senior.
“She has really grown into the role and become a team leader,” confirmed Ludlow.
It was a role she took seriously.
“I remember tryouts as a freshman,” she said. “I was the only freshman (to make the team). It was exciting.
“This year, I thought I had to live up to expectations (as a leader).”
That includes coaxing teammates to get off the bench and cheer from the dugout.
“Sometimes, during the season, the girls on the bench aren’t as wild or into the game as I am,” she said. “I usually never sit on the bench. I try to get them more into the game and be more loud and vocal.”
Crossing Bridges
If there have been any rough stretches that have made her stronger along the way, Freeman can’t readily name any.
Chances are she laughed her way through them.
“I haven’t faced any real adversity,” she said. “In a way, I guess that’s bad because I haven’t had the opportunity to overcome it.
“I guess I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.”
She has crossed bridges, in terms of priorities.
“I used to play basketball, but I chose softball,” said Freeman, who also swam for one season at Upper Moreland. “I just didn’t have the same love for basketball. My sophomore year, I had a concussion and I had to miss some games. I really didn’t mind not playing. If I was ever injured for softball, it would kill me not playing.”
Not knowing what she would do without softball is part of the motivation behind Freman’s career path, which is in physical therapy.
She was inspired by her aunt and uncle, Jim and Donna Baniewicz, who own Triumph Physical Therapy, which is based in Newtown but has satellite offices in Bristol and Levittown and Jamison.
“They've both been physical therapists for a long time,” she said. “My aunt graduated with a degree from Temple University, and my uncle graduated with a degree from Thomas Jefferson University. Currently, my uncle also is an associate instructor at Arcadia University.
“I haven't worked there, but I've had a few sessions there to work out some strained muscles. Also a few years back, my brother had a broken ankle so I went with him to some of his PT sessions and got to see the facilities and procedures.”
But just from observing the atmosphere, the idea connected.
“I like helping people gain strength, and I like helping people get back to the sport they love,” said Freeman who is involved in service-based activities such as Athletes Helping Athletes (president), Bear Buddies and a member of her church youth group.
There is a twist to her career ambition.
Freeman’s list of extracurricular activities is almost as long as her joke book – ranging from the National Honor Society to the Environmental Club (vice president) – but the main one is anything to do with German culture (German NHS, German Club, German Partnership Program).
“I've always been interested in different languages, but German has always been the most interesting,” she said. “My sister actually started taking German when she was in eighth grade, so that's what eventually influenced me. I participated in an exchange program where I've hosted two students. I've always loved to speak the language and I've kept in contact with a lot of the German students.”
So why not merge the two?
“At one point, I started thinking about how cool it would be to start up a physical therapy practice in Germany,” she continued, adding that she was never able to travel to Germany in the exchange program because of summer softball. “I've always been one of the top students in my German class, competing in oral competitions and such, so I always thought it'd be cool to explore Germany and continue to learn more about the language and culture.”
Right Place, Right Time
Freeman began playing travel softball in eighth grade and has spent the last three years with the Pennsbury Gems.
“I just said, ‘This is where I need to be,’” she explained, adding that it fits her academic pursuits like a hand in a batting glove.
“(Softball) helps me stay level-headed and not get too stressed (about academics),” she said, before cracking a typical joke about slipping to third in class rank as a sophomore before “bouncing back” to second.
“(Getting good grades) has always been important to me,” she added. “My parents raised me right, I guess. They don’t pressure me. They do it more when they voice their approval of a good grade. I do it more for me.
“Academics are my strong point. I can’t concentrate on sports unless that’s there.”
Freeman – joking that it was “weird being home alone this year with just my parents” -- is the youngest of Gary and Maryanne’s three children. Her sister Christina, who ranked near the top of her graduating class, is a junior at St. Joseph’s on an academic scholarship. Michael, also an excellent student, swims at Marywood University.
“I said to myself, ‘If he can swim at the Division III level, I guess I can play softball,” added Freeman, who was spotted by a Misericordia graduate assistant, Nicole Yost, by odd happenstance.
“The fall of my junior year I had an off weekend with the Gems because a lot of our girls had the PSAT that Saturday,” she explained. “I wanted to play that weekend so I asked my coach if I could guest play. I checked with teams that needed players in a nearby showcase in New Jersey, and a team from Binghampton asked me to guest play for them.
“I saw that Misericordia was attending that tournament to recruit players, so I contacted the coach and invited her to watch me play. That's when they first saw me play, and fortunately after that, the recruiting process was smooth sailing from there. Because Misericordia has always been my top choice, there was really no other competition.”
And it was the right fit for physical therapy as well.
“I was looking, academically, to follow a program all the way through,” she added. “At Misericordia, the first time I stepped onto the campus, I knew where I wanted to be. It just felt like home.”
At the school in Dallas, Pa. – just west of Wilkes-Barre -- she will be starting a new chapter. In typical fashion, she has it all in proper perspective.
“They are only losing three seniors and the first baseman was a junior,” she said. “I know I’m going to have to earn my spot, and I’m ready to work hard.”
Ludlow has no doubt her success, on and off the diamond, will continue.
“They carry a lot of girls (on the roster), so she she is going to have to work hard,” he said. “If anybody can understand that, it’s her. She will be very successful at that level. She has a tremendous work ethic, on and off the softball field.
“She’s just a really great kid. She strives to do her best at everything she does. She’s never too high for the highs or too low for the lows. For as good as a softball player she is, she is that much better as a person and a student.”
