CINCINNATI - Being from a baseball family has been inspirational for Harrison Barnes.

“I’ve been into baseball since I started T-Ball around age four,” the Sycamore senior noted. “My uncle (Rosevelt Barnes) played at Cincinnati and my cousin (RJ Barnes) played at Morehouse College in Atlanta. My dad (Harry Barnes), my uncle and cousin have all really helped out my game.”

The desire to play in college came not long after T-Ball.

“I started watching college baseball on ESPN around seven or eight,” Barnes reflected. “I remember saying, ‘wow I want to do that someday.’ “

The 187th-ranked 2021 in Ohio will have the opportunity to fulfill that dream after a recent commitment to Eastern Kentucky.

“I was at a tournament game at Thomas More College last year and they noticed me and invited me to a camp,” Barnes explained about EKU. “In November I went on a visit and loved it there. I feel the coaches really care about their players. I love the facilities and like that it’s close to home, an hour and 50 minutes away.”

There is more that Barnes likes about the Ohio Valley Conference program, which gave the 6-1 180-pound left-handed hitting outfielder an offer this summer.

“I like their game style, they like small ball,” Barnes related. “They like to bunt a lot and I like to do that, too.”

A standout center fielder, the left-handed throwing Barnes has worked hard at improving his overall game.

“I go four days a week and hit it hard,” Barnes noted. “I go over to the high school and do a lot of hitting. I’ve really been working hard on taking the outside pitch to left, getting stronger on the backside.”

Eastern Michigan and Morehouse College were other schools Barnes considered before deciding on Eastern Kentucky as his future home.

“I went to a lot of PBRs to get my name out there,” Barnes said. “They have a video of me in the first inning of a game with the bases loaded and a ball hit to the right-center gap. It was an elimination game of a tournament and I had to make a crazy catch to save the inning.”

It is something Barnes first began learning to do playing ball with his father.

“I’ve been playing outfield for a long time,” related Barnes, who spent countless hours chasing down balls hit by his dad at Hazelwood Park in his Cincinnati neighborhood. “My dad would always hit me fly balls at the park when I was growing up. I used to get mad when he hit balls that were impossible for me to get to, but he said one day you’ll get to them and he was right.”

Now Barnes looks forward to taking that defensive prowess and other parts of his game to the next level at Eastern Kentucky.

“I’m the leadoff hitter and center fielder on my summer and high school teams,” Barnes said. “I like to set the tone. I’m the one who’s going to bring energy to the team and I plan to do that in college.”

Making a commitment brings a sense of relief to Barnes, who just turned 17 in late June.

“I was a little nervous not being committed going into my senior year but I talked to my uncle and my dad and they said everything will work out and it did,” Barnes said. “It was kind of stressful, but I trusted in them.

“Now that I’m committed it’s surreal. It hasn’t really hit me yet. One day I’m watching Division I baseball on TV and like wow, now I’m going to be doing that.”