NEW ORLEANS — LSU Head Baseball Coach Paul Mainieri has high praises for freshman first baseman Tre Morgan.
“I’ve coached now, this’ll be my 39th year. I would put him in a category of maybe 5 first baseman that I have coached in my entire lifetime,” says Mainieri
Words that set high expectations for the Brother Martin product, expectations Tre’s high school baseball Coach Jeff Lupo knows he will have no problem living up to.
“I think he’s the kind of kid that’s not going to shy away from expectations or a challenge. He started for us as a freshman and his personality is infectious which is going to ingratiate him to his teammates and he’s just going to work. In this city when you think of first baseman that’s come out of here and it wouldn’t surprise me if one day we’re talking about him in that same category,” says Lupo.
Morgan was an All-District & All-Metro selection for the Crusaders his junior season.
He hit 3 home runs and 27 RBI’s with a .756 slugging percentage.
While he was regarded as one of the top hitters in the state, both Lupo and Mainieri say his glove work is impeccable.
“He did things around the bag to help us and make us a better defensive team that you really don’t see high school players do. It was phenomenal,” says Lupo.
“Me and my dad have been working on my glove since I was about 4-years-old. He’d back up to short stop and throw picks at me, as hard as he could, and then when I’d take ground balls he’d go to home plate and hit the ball as hard as he could at me. No matter how old I was,” says LSU Freshman Tre Morgan.
At the start of his senior season, Tre injured his left elbow and had season-ending surgery.
Coach Lupo says Tre took a negative and turned it into a positive.
Lupo says,“When he got hurt he took one of the younger first baseman under his wing, trying to tutor him and be a mentor to him and help him out and when he was in the dugout, he was just like one of the guys still even though he couldn’t play. When somebody else did something that was positive, he was really happy for them. He didn’t sulk. He just saw it as a challenge he was going to have to overcome.”
One year later, Tre is healthy and exceeding expectations in Baton Rouge.
While there is no telling how much of an impact a freshman can have in college baseball, let alone the SEC, but Coach Lupo believes for a guy like Tre, the sky is the limit.
