By Blake Meacham–Every time Jake Lamoreux records a hit for the Morningside baseball team, he sets a new record for total base hits in a career.
Last year, as a junior, Lamoreux erased the previous career hits record (212, set by Chris Schiltz in 1998), in the last game of the regular season. Hit number 213 was a line drive single up the middle for an RBI. Over the next seven playoff games, he collected 25 more hits—at the end of the season, Lamoreux sat at 238 career hits.
“It was pretty surreal, considering I started the season fairly slow,” explained Lamoreux. “I really started to pick it up about half way through the regular season. I’d get at least two hits a game.”
Going into the final regular season games against Briar Cliff, head coach Brian Drent told Lamoreux that he only needed three more base knocks to set the record.
“He didn’t seem all that nervous. In fact, he didn’t play any differently at all,” said Drent.
Even most of his teammates had no idea that he had set the record until the public announcer told the attending crowd about it.
“I wasn’t paying any attention until I heard ‘new career hits record’ over the speaker,” said teammate Derek Clayton. “Then I looked around and saw everyone standing and clapping. That’s when I realized what he’d done. Immediate goosebumps.”
So what’s next for Lamoreux? He goes into his senior campaign with, one again, every coach in the Great Plains Athletic Conference preparing for his bat and trying their best to not let Jake hurt them. However, Lamoreux isn’t worried:
“I can’t think too much about it, or else I get into my own head. That’s the last place I want to be when I’m hitting. I just need to keep being myself and trying to get some barrel on the ball.”
Morningside played its first official regular season baseball games last weekend. Lamoreux played 29 of the possible 34 innings to play. In his time at the plate, he was 5-16 (.313) with 8 RBI and 2 home runs—one if which was a walk-off grand slam.
“I felt pretty comfortable, considering it was the first weekend,” explained Lamoreux, “but now we have to wait until February to get rolling again.”
Jake admits that he’s more than excited to get the season going again with a majority of the starting line-up and pitching rotation returning from a record-setting year.
“I think this team can really do something special. This is the most talented group of guys I’ve ever been around. With all these seniors making impacts, we can make some magic every game.”
Morningside continues their season on February 18, 2017, in Atchison, Kansas. They will play Benedictine College in a double header.
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