Matt Morrison admittedly struggled to adjust to the quality of pitching he faced at the NCAA Division II level after two years of junior college baseball.
If the Scotts Valley High graduate’s stats this season are any indication, however, Division II pitchers are now having to adjust to him.
Now the starting first baseman for Menlo College, Morrison is hitting .365 with three home runs and a team-leading 21 RBI after completing the Oaks’ four-game series at Chaminade in Hawaii on Monday.
Morrison started the season white hot, collecting nine hits – two of them doubles – in 12 at-bats in Menlo’s season-opening series against Cal State East Bay. The senior also drove in four runs and scored four more as the Oaks took two of three nonconference games from the Pioneers.
“I had a really fun weekend,” Morrison said.
First baseman Matt Morrison, a Scotts Valley alum, has shined for NCAA Division II Menlo College in his senior season. (Kin Lee – Menlo Athletics)
Morrison’s performance against Cal State East Bay earned him the PacWest’s first Player of the Week honor of 2026. He learned he’d won the award during his accounting class – a teammate showed him the announcement on the conference’s Instagram page as he was trying to focus on his professor’s lesson.
“He was attacking the ball aggressively and made things happen,” Menlo coach Mike Givens said. “He has an excellent eye – he knows what pitches to back off of and what pitches to go after. He’s very disciplined at the plate.”
Though he’s cooled off a bit since, Morrison still ranks among the PacWest’s most fearsome hitters, as he proved in a late February win over Concordia University of Irvine: The left-handed batter crushed a pair of three-run homers over the right-field fence in that contest, powering Menlo to a 10-4 triumph over the Golden Eagles.
Contrast that with Morrison’s first season at Menlo after transferring from Cabrillo College: He hit a paltry .097 in his first nine games as a junior in 2025, managing just four hits in 31 at-bats in that span. As a result, Morrison dropped from the No. 3 spot in the Oaks’ batting order down to No. 7.
Having hit a respectable .283 with 37 RBI in 46 games with two home runs in his final season at Cabrillo, Morrison was understandably frustrated.
“In junior college, a lot of pitchers are pretty fastball-heavy,” Morrison said. “It’s a lower level of pitching.
“In Division II, and especially in the PacWest, pitchers are more well-rounded – they’ve got fastballs, curves, sliders, and change-ups, and they throw them all for strikes. They’re not two-pitch guys – they’re three-pitch and four-pitch guys.”
Morrison had no choice but to adjust. So that’s exactly what he did.
By the end of his junior year, he was hitting .255 thanks in large part to a 12-game hitting streak in the latter half of the season. Morrison hit a whopping .385 (15-for-39) during the streak.
“It was a mindset thing,” Morrison said. “I didn’t have an idea of what the jump was from junior college to Division II. I kind of started looking to get thrown what I wanted to hit instead of looking for more off-speed pitches.”
Menlo College first baseman Matt Morrison, a Scotts Valley alum, is hitting .365 with three home runs and a team-leading 21 RBI. (Kin Lee – Menlo Athletics)
The batter’s box isn’t the only place on the baseball diamond where Morrison has had to make adjustments at the college level: A catcher in high school, he transitioned to first base while at Cabrillo. He’s gone from being clad in baseball’s version of body armor and receiving pitches thrown at him constantly to standing armor-free at a spot where a batter could smash a hard liner or ground ball in his direction at any moment.
“I try to be a wall over there and not let stuff get past me,” he said.
Givens said the 6-foot-2, 205-pound Morrison excels at that, as indicated by the fact that as of this writing, he’d made just two errors in 171 fielding chances. The Menlo coach believes the toughness Morrison developed as a catcher is a big reason why.
“He may not have the quickest speed or a quick reaction time, but he regularly makes routine plays and the tough plays that matter,” Givens said. “He’s good at scooping up tough hops, short hops.
“He’s a bulldog – he’s not going to get run over (by baserunners). He’s going to hold his ground. He can stop a guy right in his tracks.”
Morrison is one of four players from Santa Cruz County on Menlo’s roster. Freshman Javier Da Rosa Fonseca Jr., a St. Francis High graduate, has made an immediate impact for the Oaks just one year out of high school: Not only is he the Oaks’ starting shortstop, he batted .294 with a home run and eight RBI in his first 12 games.
Right-handers Dominic Hernandez (Watsonville) and Trey Silva (St. Francis), meanwhile, are both part of the Oaks’ pitching staff. Hernandez, a junior, is 1-5 in six starts, posting 11 strikeouts and a 6.67 earned-run average in a team-high 28.1 innings. The starter is fairly durable by today’s standards, pitching six innings or more on two occasions.
Silva, a sophomore reliever, boasts a 1.35 ERA in five appearances.. He had allowed just one earned run and walked four batters.
A sports marketing major, Morrison sees himself either becoming a sports agent or working in a major league team’s front office someday. However, he doesn’t plan to begin pursuing either of those options immediately after graduation – he feels he’s got some post-college playing in his future.
“There are definitely some people who have been drafted (by major league teams) from Division II,” he said. “The goal is to make it to Major League Baseball, of course, but if I have to go to the Pioneer League (a developmental league for MLB prospects) or overseas and work my way up, I definitely have the ability to do so.”
Givens agrees.
“He has the potential,” the Oaks coach said. “If he keeps hitting the ball like he does, someone’s going to recognize him.”
For now, though, Givens is looking forward to reaping the benefits of Morrison’s efforts to impress major league scouts.
“Matt’s the kind of person who sets goals for himself and achieves those goals,” he said. “I believe he has the opportunity to do that.”
COUNTY CONNECTIONS
County Connections runs every other Thursday during the academic school year. If you have an update on a local college athlete, email Ray Hacke at raydhackelaw@gmail.com.