On April 17th, in a dominant 8-2 win over Apex High School, Mason Dean (‘25) reached the career milestone of 100 runs. Dean is the first person in Green Hope baseball history to achieve this milestone, with no one else reaching 90 runs.

Five days later, in a game against Cary High School, Dean hit another milestone, achieving 100 career hits. The last time a player at Green Hope got 100 hits in a career was in 2014.

To highlight the moment for Dean, Coach Mitch Baddour gave him the ball from his hundredth hit, and an announcement was made over the PA.

Dean mentioned that his goal did not focus on getting 100 runs and hits, that “I was more focused on the team’s success in trying to win as many games as possible to get in the best position for the conference tournament and making the state playoffs.” The baseball team finished strong, winning 6 out of their last 8 games.

Major successes were captured this season. Dean shared his secrets to success: “ I know it helped that I was able to start for four years. Coach M had a lot of confidence in me my first year to start me every day, and that really helped for the accumulating stat numbers.”

Throughout Dean’s four years on the Green Hope baseball team, he shares his memorable experience, “ My favorite memory was my freshman year I made a diving catch against Leesville Road that really cemented my spot as a starting player on our team as a freshman.”

As a leader on the baseball team, Dean is aware of his influence on the younger players. When asked what he hoped they had learned from him, he said, “Success is followed by time invested into getting better. After a rough freshman year, I spent a lot of time over the summer hitting and it led to a much better sophomore year. I also hope that they understand the importance of welcoming players of all ages, especially the underclassmen who are often big contributors to a team.”

Dean’s high school career is coming to an end, but he has committed to play baseball in college at Fordham University.  Dean shared that Green Hope, “set the groundwork of how to compete on a baseball field every day and how to use the daily work to improve yourself a little bit each day throughout the entire season.” Dean has accomplished a lot at Green Hope; however, this is just the start of his journey.

 The team just finished playing in the conference tournament after finishing with a record of 10 wins and 13 losses. The team made it to the second round of the conference tournament after a 10–9 victory over Apex High School. In the second round, the team’s season came to an end after a close 3-2 loss against Apex Friendship.