Jacob Lamoreux became the Mustangs’ all-time leader with 218 career hits.

Morningside College’s Jacob Lamoreux, a junior outfielder from Le Mars, Iowa, collected three hits in Monday’s Great Plains Athletic Conference (GPAC) baseball doubleheader against Briar Cliff  University to become Morningside’s all-time hit leader with 218 career hits.

Lamoreux, who broke the former Morningside record of 217 career hits set by Bret Hoch from 2007-10, went one-for-four when the Mustangs dropped the opener 6-3 and then went two-for-five with two RBIs to help lead the Mustangs to a 9-5 victory in the nightcap.

Lamoreux has collected 218 hits in 580 at-bats for a .376 batting average during his Morningside career.

Morningside finished the regular season with a record of 39-14 and finished third in the GPAC standings with a 13-7 league record.

The Mustangs will compete in the Briar Cliff bracket of the GPAC Post-Season Tournament and will face Mount Marty in a first round game on Thursday at noon.

Briar Cliff starting pitcher Arik Ward threw six innings of three-hit shutout ball in the opener before the Mustangs broke his shutout bid with three runs in the bottom of the seventh inning. All of the runs came off the bat of Joe Tourville, who blasted a three-run home run after Cole Chapin and Blake Meacham had walked earlier in the inning.

Tourville’s home run was the Mustangs’ only extra base blow among their five hits in the opener. The other hits were singJes by Chapin, Meacham, Lamoreux, and David Foley.

The Chargers took a 1-0 lead in the top of the third inning on a RBI single by Joshua Penrod and then added three more runs in the fourth, two of them on a single by Alex Colegrove, to stretch their lead to 4-0.

Briar Cliff broke the game open when Jeff Hackenmueller had a two-run double in the top of the seventh to increase the guests’ advantage to 6-0.

The Mustangs jumped on Briar Cliff with a four-run second inning to take an early 4-0 lead in the nightcap. Morningside had four consecutive hits to open the inning when Chapin and Cole Halgerson singled and then the combination of a bunt single by Meacham and a pair of Briar Cliff errors enabled Chapin to score the game’s first run. The Mustangs made it 3-0 on a two-run double down the right field line by Tourville before Lamoreux drove in the last run with a RBI groundout.

Briar Cliff tied the score at 4-4 with a four-run inning of its own in the fifth and then tied the score again at 5-5 with a run in the top of the sixth.

Morningside took the lead for good with three runs in the bottom of the seventh to go up 8-5. Nolan Hoff drove in the first run with a double down the left field line. The other two runs came home on a RBI single by Blake Rogers and a sacrifice fly by Nathan DeChaine.

The Mustangs capped the scoring with a run in the eighth inning on a two-out RBI single by Lamoreux.

Hoff went three-for-five with a pair of doubles to help the Mustangs bang out 15 hits in the nightcap. DeChaine and Tourville each had a double and single, while Rogers and Lamoreux each had two singles.

Ross Ackerman pitched 1.2 innings of hitless and scoreless relief to get the win. Lance Spongberg allowed one hit and struck out three of the five batters he faced over the final 1.2 innings for his eighth save of the season.

Game One Box

Game Two Box