Allan Hancock College freshman baseball player J.P. Maseta already has a great future in front of him. The 18-year-old shortstop—No. 32—has had a great season so far with six RBIs and a homerun, and is carrying a 3.5 GPA to boot.
Coach Chris Stevens had good things to say about Maseta during a recent game: “He’s got a great work ethic he’s a tremendous kid—works very hard all the time, very competitive.”
That recent game, which Maseta and his squad went on to win, was part of the Bulldog World Series, an end-of-fall tradition that divides all of the players in the baseball program into separate teams to play a series of five.
During an early game of the series, Maseta had his biggest moment of the season so far: He hit the second of back-to-back home runs against the gold team.
“We ended up blowing that game open later on,” he told the Sun with a grin.
Since this is his first semester in college, what does he see as different in baseball played in the realm of higher education, as opposed to high school?
“In high school, it’s like school, then sports,” he explained. “Here in college, it’s sports, but school is just a part of it. It’s not so much student athletes as athletes who play sports.”
With his solid grade point average and proven record so far, Maseta should do just fine—athlete or student.
This article appears in Nov 26 – Dec 3, 2008.