By Jimmy Brooks, News Staff

Freshman outfielder Aaron Barbosa earned the respect of his teammates the old-fashioned way. He didn’t intimidate fellow players or opponents with his pedestrian five-foot, 10-inch frame. He didn’t waltz into the locker room on the first day of his rookie season and command respect.

The 19-year-old outfielder and second baseman from Dracut simply played lights-out the entire year, and now has a Colonial Athletic Association (CAA) rookie of the year award to show for it.

Barbosa hit a scalding .335 through the course of 51 games. Perhaps even more impressively, he stole 29 bases, topping the previous Northeastern record of 27 set by Mark Hopkins in 1994.

Those are team captain numbers, not numbers anyone would expect out of a kid less than a year out of high school, as Barbosa went from facing pitchers that would be lucky to crack 80 miles per hour to facing players that top 90 on a weekly basis.

“Everyone is bigger, faster, stronger,” Barbosa said, speaking of the transition from high school to college ball. “I would definitely say the game speed was the biggest change overall. You have to make decisions faster, you have to know what you’re doing at all times.”

If Barbosa could pinpoint one part of his game that lead to his success, he said, it would be his speed.

“Offensively, I always try to get on base with speed and make it uncomfortable for the other team,” Barbosa said. “On defense, I feel greatly confident in my outfield ability. I know I can track down a few balls just based on running pretty fast.”

The rising outfielder may have put up astonishing numbers, but that doesn’t mean he was completely content with the way things went this past season. The Huskies finished 18-33, although they managed to go 13-12 over the final half of the season.

“As team we were definitely hoping for more,” Barbosa said. “[The season] wasn’t horrible, but it wasn’t great. It can only get better next year. We’re a young team, and if we can get hits and score runs we’ll be a contender.”