Luke is a senior outfielder on the Hillsdale College baseball team. Originally from Troy, Michigan, Luke is serving as co-captain this season. He is off to a fast start, hitting .418, and has been named GLIAC North Hitter of the Week.
Why did you choose Hillsdale?
My junior year of high school I was playing in a state tournament in the regional game at Adrian College, and our current head coach was, at that time, the recruiting coordinator, and he was at that game recruiting, and I had a great game and that’s when Hillsdale started recruiting me. I did know about Hillsdale before that, because one of my high school coaches played baseball here in ‘98 and ‘99. He said “You should check out Hillsdale, it’s a great school, and you could play ball.” And that was important to me, to go to a place where I could get a great education and still play baseball.
What do you think has been the highlight of your baseball experience at Hillsdale College?
Definitely it’s been the start to our season this year. My freshman year to my senior year, the program has gone through dramatic changes. Style changes, the atmosphere of the team, work ethic — it’s a complete total team change. We’ve been trying to hone that vision and leave a legacy. We’re off to our best start in history. Now that we’re winning and having fun, it’s awesome. When I was first here, we were just starting to do team lifts, and they were run by the captains, and that wasn’t a good arrangement. Now we have a strength and conditioning coach, and we lift every week.
What’s been your best game to date?
We’ve had so many great games and some awesome comebacks. We had a big comeback against Bellarmine. During that game we were down, and Connor Bartlett hit a grand slam to left field and I think that’s maybe the farthest I’ve ever seen him hit, and we were amped up after that game. Later that day, we drive about 10 minutes to this other field, and it has lights because it’s getting later, and we started a game at about 7 p.m., and that game didn’t end until about 12:20. It was a 21-19 victory for the Chargers, and most of the guys that were playing in that game were slap-happy they were so exhausted. It was 20 MPH winds out to right field, and it was the marathon game of the ages. I don’t have the best memory, but that’s definitely one I’ll never forget. I made the final out of that game. We were so relieved after that. Eleven innings, I think it went. You couldn’t have written this game up in a book, you couldn’t have imagined it, that’s definitely the craziest game I’ve ever been in.
What kind of legacy do you want to leave for your team?
I think that’s hard to put into words, because it involves so many intangibles — it’s the work ethic, the attitude, the expectations. Instead of asking, ‘Am I going to hit today?’ or ‘Am I going to work out today?’ It’s an attitude of ‘What time am I going to hit?’ You expect to be working each day. In my time here, this has been the best time when everyone has been close to each other and believes in each other.
What are you going to miss most?
I’m definitely going to miss my teammates the most. The relationships I’ve built over my years here, that’s definitely the first thing I’ll miss. The great part about that is hopefully I’ll be able to stay close to them. I think second would be the competitiveness, for me as a hitter stepping into the box, I just know that it’s go time, and I’ll definitely miss that. Other than that, I don’t really want to think about it, because I only have 50 games left, and I’ve been playing baseball seriously for eight years now. It’s pretty crazy.
