A month into the regular season, Creighton baseball has put on a strong opening performance. The team has mustered an 9-5 record without a home game to date, going 8-3 on the road and 1-2 in its neutral site matchup against Northeastern to begin the year.
While this initial success is wholly a team effort, one player catching attention is junior centerfielder Clark Brinkman. Entering his second year at Creighton, he has been a promising standout in a solid first few weeks of the 2018 season.
Hailing from Addison, Illinois, Clark attended IC Catholic Prep and graduated a four-time All-Metro Suburban Conference and Academic All-Metro Suburban recipient. As a senior, he hit .446 with 27 stolen bases and two home runs.
He redshirted his freshman year at the University of Dayton, then he transferred to McHenry County College, where he had 76 hits, 72 RBIs, and hit .369. He helped McHenry reach the NJCAA DII World Series, where the team placed seventh.
Brinkman transferred to Creighton for the 2017 season, where he made immediate and noteworthy contributions. He started in 48 of 49 games in center field, where his defensive prowess turned heads across the country—with two of his diving catches featured on SportsCenter’s Top 10. He pulled his weight at bat as well, recording 10 multi-hit performances, and had three hits each in game against Air Force and South Dakota State.
Brinkman continues to make strides and turn heads in his second season at Creighton. Through 13 games, he has 23 hits, 17 runs and eight RBIs with a .411 batting average as the team’s leadoff hitter. He has also excelled in the outfield, with 43 putouts, two assists and a perfect fielding percentage.
Brinkman has had many impressive games so far this season that include seven hits, seven runs scored and six RBIs in the series against Northeastern, a four-hit game against UC Davis and three hits against Central Arkansas and Minnesota. He followed this with two hits against top competition in Kansas State (10-6) on Tuesday night.
After an impressive 2-1 series win at Minnesota and a dominating 13-3 win on the road against Kansas State, Brinkman and the Bluejays will finally return to Omaha for their first home games of the year. Former Missouri Valley Conference rival Wichita State comes to TD Ameritrade Park for games on March 16-18.