Morningside inducted three former standout athletes and the 1980 baseball team into the M-Club Hall of Fame during Homecoming 2015. Photo / Gene Knudsen

Morningside College inducted former standout athletes Craig Fobbe, Lonnie MacPeek, and Jake Stevenson into the M-Club Hall of Fame as part of its Homecoming 2015 festivities on Saturday, Oct. 10.

In addition to the three athletes, the college’s 1980 North Central Conference (NCC) championship baseball team was also inducted into the M-Club Hall of Fame.

Fobbe, a 2006 Morningside graduate, was a four-year starter at quarterback for Morningside’s football team from 2002-05. He graduated as the most prolific passer in Morningside history with school-record career totals of 851 completions in 1,504 attempts for 11,623 yards and 89 touchdowns. Fobbe is also Morningside’s career record holder with 11,693 yards total offense. Fobbe owned three of the top four single-season passing yardage totals in Morningside history at the time of his graduation.

He was a two-time first-team All-Great Plains Athletic Conference (GPAC) selection, the GPAC Co-Player of the Year as a junior in 2004, and the GPAC Player of the Year as a senior in 2005. Fobbe was a NAIA honorable mention All-American as a junior and a second-team All-American as a senior.

Fobbe helped lead the Mustangs to an 8-3 record in 2004 and their first-ever post-season appearance in the NAIA Championship Series. His best season came in his 2005 senior campaign when the Mustangs posted a 12-1 record to set a school record for victories, won their first-ever GPAC championship, and advanced to the NAIA Semifinals. Morningside won the GPAC with a perfect 10-0 record, including a 27-26 victory against the University of Sioux Falls to snap the Cougars’ 40-game GPAC winning streak. 

Fobbe passed for a NAIA national record 4,885 yards as a senior and led the NAIA with averages of 375.8 yards passing and 375.0 yards total offense per game. Fobbe also set school records with 41 touchdown passes, a 61.6 percent completion rate, and 4,875 yards total offense. He passed for 453 yards and a school-record six touchdowns in a 58-7 win against St. Ambrose University in the opening round of the NAIA Championship Series and threw for a school-record 501 yards and set school records with 31 completions and 510 yards total offense in a 54-21 victory against Evangel University in the NAIA Quarterfinals.

MacPeek, a 1994 graduate, was a standout sprinter for Morningside’s men’s track & field team. He earned NCAA Division II All-America honors as part of a Morningside 1600-meter relay team that placed eighth at the 1990 NCAA II Outdoor Track & Field National Championships. MacPeek ran the anchor after Kevin Freeman, Chad Libby, and Brad Bartlett ran the first three legs.

MacPeek excelled at the NCC Championships, where he was a two-time individual conference champion and part of two championship relay teams. MacPeek won the 400-meter dash at the 1990 NCC Indoor Track & Field Championships with a time of 50.12 seconds and later that spring won the 400-meters with a time of 48.77 seconds at the NCC Outdoor Championships.

He anchored Morningside to conference titles in the 1600-meter relay at both the 1990 NCC Indoor and Outdoor Championships. Morningside won the indoor title with a time of 3:22.05 and the outdoor title with a time of 3:14.63. Morningside’s 3:14.63 clocking at the 1990 NCC Outdoor Championships was the third fastest winning time in the 15-year history of the event at the time.

Stevenson, a 2008 graduate and the Mustangs’ head wrestling coach, was Morningside’s first-ever NAIA National Champion and is the college’s only four-time NAIA All-American in the sport of wrestling. He posted a career record of 130-25 with 23 falls for the most victories in Morningside history.

Stevenson captured the 2007 NAIA 184 lb. National Championship when he won a 3-1 decision against No. 1-ranked Joffre Lander of Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in the title bout to cap a junior season where he had a record of 23-1. Stevenson won his final 11 matches of the season after he recovered from a broken jaw he suffered in a November match against Austin Hayes of Buena Vista University. Stevenson defaulted in that match for his only loss of the season.

He also earned NAIA All-America honors with fourth place finishes in the 174 lb. division of the NAIA National Championships as a freshman and sophomore and with a third place finish at 184 lbs. as a senior. Stevenson had a 45-8 record as a sophomore to set a school record for victories in a season. He set school records with 28 3-point near falls and seven wins by technical fall as a junior. Stevenson was named the Mustangs’ Most Valuable Wrestler after each of his four seasons and was a three-time GPAC champion.

Morningside’s 1980 baseball team won the NCC championship with a 12-4 record and finished with an overall record of 18-16. The NCC title earned the team a berth in the NCAA Division II Midwest Regional tournament, where the season ended after a 2-1 loss against Northwest Missouri State and a 13-2 setback against Mankato State. Ten of the team’s 16 losses came against NCAA Division I opponents, including defending Big Ten Conference champion Michigan State, nationally ranked Pan American, and a doubleheader against the University of Nebraska.

Longtime Morningside head coach Don Protexter was named the NCC Coach of the Year and junior ace Mike King was named the NCC’s Most Valuable Pitcher. King was joined on the All-NCC team by pitcher Royce Schultz, catcher Jay Rehnstrom, and shortstop Greg Smith, while second baseman Ron Stabile and outfielder Terry Meyer received honorable mention All-NCC recognition. King, who was also named the NCC’s Most Valuable Pitcher as a freshman in 1978, and Rehnstrom, the 1981 NCC Co-Most Valuable Player, were both named to the All-NCC team three times during their careers, while Smith was a two-time pick.
Aside from the All-NCC performers, other players on the team included Mike Allan, Lonny Amick, Bob Bouvia, Bruce Bunch, Mike Clough, Dave Etzel, Brian Johnson, Rhett Kenny, Tom Leinen, Tom McCann, Mark Paulsen, Scott Piersma, Bruce Pinkerton, Terry Pomerenke, Kent Prescott, Arlin Roskam, Jeff Snyders, Tim Watts, and Bill Welch.

A dominate pitching staff was the key to the team’s success. Morningside led the NCC with a 2.25 team earned run average to finish over a full run lower than runner-up South Dakota State’s mark of 3.39. King and Schultz each pitched three shutouts in NCC competition to tie a league record and helped Morningside set a team NCC single-season record with six shutouts. Schultz was 3-0 in the NCC and allowed only 11 hits in 21 innings, while King went 4-1 with a 0.31 ERA and allowed only seven hits and struck out 46 batters in 29.1 innings. King finished the season with an overall record of 6-4 with a 0.47 ERA and allowed only 14 hits and struck out 93 batters in 56.2 innings, while Schultz finished 4-1 with a 2.74 ERA.

McCann was the team’s leading hitter with a .313 batting average, while Smith hit .292 with a team-high seven doubles, nine home runs, and 22 RBIs. Smith topped the NCC with six doubles and was the co-leader with 14 runs scored in the team’s 16 league contests.

King set NCC career records with six shutouts and a 0.75 earned run average in his three seasons at Morningside. The left-handed fire baller struck out a school-record 304 batters in 174 innings and pitched seven no-hitters during his Morningside career, including a no-hitter against Big Ten champion Michigan State as a sophomore. King was named a first-team NCAA II All-American in 1980 and in June of that year was selected by the Oakland Athletics with the fourth overall pick in the first round of Major League Baseball’s free agent draft. The first pick that year was future MLB standout Darryl Strawberry.