A pair of Northmor athletes closed out their school year by signing to continue their athletic and academic careers at the next level.
Jake Farley will play baseball for Grace College in Indiana, while Spencer Adams will run track and cross country for Bluffton University.
“It’s exciting — it feels like a lot of weight has been lifted off my shoulders,” said Farley after signing with Grace, which competes at the NAIA level.
While he had also been looking at Mount Union and Shawnee State, it didn’t take long for Grace to win him over.
“I’ve been looking around since November,” he said. “I visited Grace in April and after I got back, I knew I wanted to go there. I really liked the environment and the campus life. I had a good time there.”
Farley, who is planning to major in information technology, is expecting to see time at catcher for the school. He will need to make one big adjustment, though, as he’s only participating in one sport with the Lancers. While with Northmor, he was a three-sport star, also taking part in football and wrestling.
“Usually football overlaps to wrestling, which overlaps into baseball,” he said. “Baseball’s always been my favorite, but wrestling was in the air. I thought about wrestling at Mount Union, but didn’t think I’d have fun wrestling in college.”
During his senior year with Northmor, Farley led the team in hits, runs and stolen bases, while batting .430. He also was the team’s top pitcher, leading the Knights in innings, ERA and strikeouts. For those efforts, he was named a second-team All-Ohio player in Division III.
He also was an all-district player in football and concluded his wrestling career by advancing to the state meet as a senior.
At Bluffton, Adams will be busy with sports for most of the year, as he’s planning to participate in both indoor and outdoor track, as well as cross country.
Before picking Bluffton, he was considering running at Ohio Wesleyan or simply attending The Ohio State University.
“I really like the campus,” he said of Bluffton. “And the coaches are really cool. They care about their athletes, which is one of the things I was looking for.”
He noted he didn’t really think about possibly competing in sports in college until his junior year, but after deciding to, quickly started searching for the right school.
“I visited three schools and would have run at two of them, but didn’t really decide until the beginning of May,” he said.
While Adams hasn’t decided on a major, he is considering both education and criminal justice. While a runner with the Knights, he picked up honorable mention honors in the Mid-Ohio Athletic Conference in cross country as a sophomore and led the team in the regional meet this year after running there by himself as a junior.
In track this year, he was a member of the 3200-meter relay that earned second-team league honors and also placed in regionals. He also ran in regionals in the 1600. He also ran in the regional meet as a junior.
