Freeman Captains Share Deep Roots Each Has Differing Style, Similar Goal

Two Freeman High basketball captains have designs on the present with an eye on the past.

D.J. Goldsmith and Matt Miller have ties to each other and the Scotties that go back long before they became part of the high school’s basketball team.

The two members of area farming families have together been called upon to lead the team that is in the middle of state qualifying.

One team from the Northeast A League tournament, being played at Mead High, qualifies for the State A Tournament March 4-7 in Tacoma. If Freeman succeeds, it will be the school’s first state tournament trip in 11 years.

“State would be nice. It’s in the back of our minds,” said Miller. “But we have to keep things in perspective.”

Miller can remember his sophomore year, when the Scotties nearly upset Chewelah for a state trip. He took the shot that could have won the game but came up short. The team ultimately was eliminated from district.

“That one game has been kind of influential for keeping me on track,” he said.

Miller has a quiet, lead-by-example personality. Goldsmith is more outgoing.

The team captains are the scoring leaders for the Northeast A League unbeatens, who compiled a 15-5 record overall.

The success of this year’s team has been tied to a series of common threads that began years ago.

D.J.’s dad and his brothers, Chad and Travis, preceded him at Freeman.

His path crossed with Miller beginning in second grade on a YMCA team that Goldsmith’s dad, Doug, coached.

Two other current Freeman varsity players, Jared Freeman and Josh White, also played with his teams through their formative years.

The quartet’s basketball work habits were formed while practicing with coach Mike Thacker’s hard-working first team of three years ago.

“They would work me to death,” Goldsmith recalled.

He began, like his brothers before him, as a guard. But at 6-foot-3 he has played a post almost exclusively for the past two years.

“It was a situation where we had wings and guards and needed a post,” said Thacker.

The change was a big one for Goldmith to make. He had to learn to become physical, but he has learned to take advantage of his long arms to snare rebounds and take shots his coach said he never should be able to make.

“I’d never played post in my life and pretty much had to start from scratch,” Goldsmith said.

This year he is averaging 13.5 points per game and has scored in double figures all but three of them.

Miller is one of a number of veteran guards, who interchanges at point with White. It is not planned.

“I don’t think there is a reason,” said Miller. “It comes naturally.”

His slashing style and defensive intensity have produced a scoring average of 12.3 points per game.

Included was a run of four straight 20-plus point games.

Neither player has been surprised with Freeman’s success. Miller said it started with early season intensity that has bolstered team confidence.

Though both understand there is a ways to go before a state trip can become reality, they relish the opportunity.

“When Travis was a senior, he and I went and watched,” recalled Goldsmith of their trip to Tacoma in 1995. “The atmosphere just watching was amazing. I’ve been excited about it ever since then.”

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