Clayton High School junior Lance Morris is a baseball guy. He’ll tell you that he also played basketball growing up as well as baseball, but he stopped playing basketball when he got into high school (though he plans to start playing again this year) to devote more time and effort into his favorite sport-baseball. He started playing both when he was young but says things changed a little when he got into middle school.
“I’ve always enjoyed playing baseball but when I got into seventh grade, I had a coach that really taught me a lot about the game and that’s when I really started taking it seriously,” said Morris who is also vice president of the junior class and a member of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes.
You could kind of see this coming since he has been a follower of the Houston Astros for several years.
“Growing up I’ve followed the Astros. My favorite player there is Alex Bregman and I follow him and some of the others like Jose Altuve and Justin Verlander on social media as well the team itself.”
Lance is a versatile player who is one of Clayton’s main pitchers, but also plays centerfield and can play a little infield and even some catcher if necessary. Even though he is just a junior, Lance is a team leader on a team short on seniors and he has some definite ideas about what a leader should be for his team.
“I think you have to be there for the kids that really don’t know what they’re doing. We’re a young team and so we’re pretty inexperienced so you’ve got to be there to pep them up if they get down and keep them motivated. You’ve got to be there for practice. You’ve got to be there for the games. You can’t miss anything. You’ve got to be the person they can trust and look up to and the person that if they don’t know something, they can ask, and you have to do things right.”
Besides being young this year, the team has also experienced some illness problems which has led to a slow start, but Lance feels if they can’t get people healthy, it will work out. Though he’s got two more years to play, Lance already has one solid memory that will stick with him.
“Last year I had a good game where I struck out a lot of guys and threw a shutout against Eagletown,” said Morris.
With still a couple of years to make more memories ahead, Morris says his long-term goal right now is to go to college and play baseball or possibly go into the military after high school.
