Chase Garrow hit .405 as a junior for the Hopewell Valley Central High baseball team, but wasn’t satisfied.
Just what does that mean?
“It’s the difference between the desire to be good and the desire be great,” Bulldogs coach Chris Skolka said. “He wants to be great. He has high expectations for himself, high expectations for the team and he knows what he has to do to meet those expectations. A lot of that goes to his dedication in the off-season and continuing that work during the season.”
An abstract example of that improvement can be demonstrated by Garrow’s Apr. 20 effort against Montgomery. He went 2-for-4….and his batting average dropped.
Yet the average remained astronomical, as Garrow was hitting .590 with a team-high 17 RBI through Hopewell’s 6-5 start. The senior shortstop hit safely in all 11 games; and had seven multi-hit games; including five three-hit efforts. Three triples, a double and home run placed his slugging percentage at .974 and his OPS at 1.593.
There is no secret to his success: good old fashion hard work with his hitting coach, Luke Longo.
“This off-season was the hardest I’ve worked through my journey,” he said. “I tried to become the best version of myself and just unlock the potential I had as a hitter.
“I always saw the ball well and always knew the zone pretty well, I was just never really able to put it together and be able to hit for a little bit of power and contact. I just worked on hitting every pitch and didn’t try to pull everything. Try to hit the ball where it’s pitched. It’s worked pretty well so far.”
If that’s pretty well, it would be frightening to see very well.
It speaks volumes about Garrow that he wasn’t satisfied with last season. Much of that desire to improve came from the fact he spent the year digging out of an early 4-for-20 hole.
“I always strive to be better,” he said. “My coaches want better for me. Everyone around me wants me to be better for myself and just the team in general. I knew I had more potential than I had last year.
“I started last season off slow and I knew I wasn’t gonna let that happen again. I knew I had more in me and there was more to come this year.”
It’s coming thanks to the work with Longo, who Garrow hooked up with through travel ball. The former Hunterdon Central standout graduated from New Jersey Institute of Technology as its all-time home run leader, and with that resume’ Chase stuck with him for personal training.
Longo urged Garrow to stay on his back leg and use his hips to fire out so he doesn’t just drift toward the pitch. Rather than try to pull everything to rightfield – Garrow bats left and throws right – he worked on hitting the ball where it’s pitched.
“It’s just trusting my hips through the zone and not trying to do too much at the plate; just hit it where it’s pitched,” he said. “Just trust my hands and go from there.
“We started on the lower half, balancing out the mechanics, knowing when to fire and learning how to trust my hands. I never trusted them. They’re quicker than I thought they were. Especially when my hips fire. It’s one of those things where I have to remember I have more time than I think if I just trust my hands.”
Garrow’s biggest improvement has been his power, as his slugging percentage was .559 and .562 his first two seasons. He’s sending that power the opposite way, which is a credit to his dedication in the weight room and an approach in which he does not try and do too much with his upper body other than letting his hands stay behind the pitch before flying to the ball.
“He’s really able to drive the ball in the left centerfield gap,” Skolka noted. “Against (West Windsor-Plainsboro) South he had two triples to left center, and a home run. He’s always been a high contact guy and this year his power has really been good. He can drive the ball all over the ballpark, which is really good to see from a middle of the lineup guy.”
Garrow has come a long way from his first day of tryouts with HVCHS, which resulted in a broken thumb.
“It’s a funny story,” Garrow said. “I was catching in the bullpen and caught a change-up completely wrong. At the time it was the best change-up I’d ever seen in my life. It caught me off guard. I caught the rest of my pen, I didn’t think anything was wrong. My thumb was super swollen and my trainer (Tim Coyne) knew something was broken. I was only out a month which was nice.
“But it was definitely a weird thing doing it the first day; definitely a challenge mentally. I think I handled it the best way that I could. I went to practice and helped out the most I could. I would still throw a little bit. Just seeing people at their positions and how they played helped me learn.”
Despite losing a chance to try out for varsity as a freshman, Garrow was able to play regularly for the JV team.
“I think that year was really helpful to me,” he said. “Being on JV; seeing pitching and not just being wasted on the varsity team helped me learn everything.”
At Timberlane School Garrow was a catcher, a position he loved.
“I thought I was pretty good. . .I was (just) all right,” he said with a laugh. “I knew it would be tough with Ryan (Ottobre) there. He’s a way better catcher than me. I tried to work on something else. One summer I played a lot of third base. I was a third baseman going into sophomore year. Last year I moved to short for the first time.”
He has remained there, and has looked good doing so. Getting time at third base helped Chase adjust to the infield, but he had to re-adjust to playing deeper in the hole at short.
“There’s a big difference in the time you have (to throw the ball),” he said. “I knew I had the range to play short but at third everything is on you so fast and you feel like you have so much more time. I had to work on that, and try to read the ball better off the bat.
“There’s not much room for error. You have to learn when to stay back on the ball. It’s a little bit of an adjustment but it’s been easier than I thought because I’ve gotten so many reps in games and practice that by now it feels natural.”
Skolka loves the way Garrow plays short, almost as much as he loves the way he hits.
“He’s a great athlete and does a great job at shortstop,” the coach said. “He makes some great plays with his athleticism and offensively he’s in another world right now.”
That world was created through not being content with a .398 career average through his first two varsity seasons.
“He’s doing it the right way,” Skolka said. “It’s really awesome, the growth from year to year. Sometimes you get kids that are studs as sophomores and they stay where they’re at. To see the exponential growth year after year has been absolutely fantastic and is exactly what we want to see as a coaching staff. It makes him a great role model for our younger kids.”
Garrow also sees time on the mound and has made three appearance this season – two that were solid and one where he struggled against Rancocas Valley.
“He’s been doing a real good job,” Skolka said. “It’s tough to take your shortstop and put him on the mound. He’s gonna get a lot more high leverage innings for us.”
At the plate, Garrow bats second in the lineup behind Jaykob Shin and in front of Lucas Hemmer and Ottobre. Shin was hitting .520 through 11 games while Ottobre was at .419 and Hemmer .270.
“I love the one-two we have,” Garrow said. “Jaykob has always been a great leadoff hitter. I’m confident that every time I go to the plate there’s gonna be a runner on for me. I think that confidence goes to everybody else. They trust me and Jaykob to get on base as much as we can. They try to do the same thing. Get on first, let the rest of the lineup do the work.”
Garrow will take his work ethic down Routh 31 to The College of New Jersey next season, where he will major in Business Management. Chase, who’s in Hopewell’s Fellowship of Christian Athletes club, is as strong in the classroom as he is on the field, which made TCNJ attractive.
“I had four D-3 offers before I committed,” he said. “They’re a really good academic school and the baseball is good. My parents and grandparents can come watch me play, and that was a big consideration.”
Count Skolka in that group as well.
“ I always try see my kids play, especially at the next level,” the coach said. “Him being at TCNJ makes it convenient for me. TCNJ is great for him. It’s a great academic school with a great baseball program as well. So I’m really happy for him. He’s on to bigger and better things.”
Especially if he continues to never be satisfied, no matter how good his stats are.
Chase Garrow at the plate for Hopewell Valley. The senior was batting .580 with six triples and a home run through 10 games. (Photo by Mike Schwartz/mssphoto.com.),
