Over the past three years, senior Matt Dunham has represented the Knights on the varsity baseball team. During this time, Dunham has helped lead his team to the championship round of Districts, has had numerous critical hits off some of the area’s top pitchers and has created an everlasting legacy on FHN’s baseball program. Now, he’ll be taking his talents to the college game at Jefferson College in Hillsboro, MO.

“I wanted to go to a four-year school, but I didn’t get a scholarship to any of the schools that I specifically wanted to go to,” Dunham said. “So, Jefferson College was my first JUCO [junior college] choice. When I went up there and talked to them and they made me an offer, I pretty much knew that’s where I wanted to go for the next two years.”

One person who has helped Dunham get to this point is his summer ball coach Todd Myers. He and Myers have worked together the last three offseasons, and Dunham credits his coach for helping him get better as a player and in enhancing some of the critical tools needed to succeed at the next level. While he won’t play for Myers in the upcoming summer, the two remain in contact on the regular.

Myers isn’t the only one who has helped Dunham. Having multiple teammates, such as fellow seniors Noah Pingel and Sam Grace, who also plan on playing at the next level, has helped the future Viking prepare for college baseball.

“One of the biggest things I’ve always said is, ‘You become who you surround yourself with,’” Dunham said. “When you surround yourself with those people that are going to that next level and they really work hard at what they do, you’re always working as hard as them and the others.”

The Vikings weren’t the only school interested in FHN’s first baseman. According to Dunham, some of the other universities that showed interest in him were Quincy University, SLU and the University of Cincinnati. In the end, it was Jefferson College that offered the most to Dunham and took the edge over the other schools. To have such a large number of colleges keen on bringing him in proved to Dunham that he was turning heads in the baseball world.

“It shows that if you work hard, you can get to where you want to be,“ Dunham said. “I’m not there yet, but that just shows that people notice what you do and it makes you want to work that much harder for yourself.”