By Jake McCoy
DeQuincy native and now former McNeese State Cowboy left fielder Cooper Hext had an outstanding senior year with the Pokes. It ultimately landed him a spot on the LSWA All-Louisiana baseball team as Hext received Honorable Mention last week.
Hext’s senior campaign began with being named to the All-Southland Conference team. He certainly lived up to the title by having a team high .314 batting average with 75 hits including 11 doubles, 7 triples, and 8 home runs. He was the lead off batter a majority of the season.
That’s exactly where head coach Justin Hill wanted Hext because he knew what he was capable of especially in big games. Hext also tallied 34 RBIs and had a slugging percentage of .519 as well as stealing 25 bases which led the conference in that category as well, He was 7th in the nation in triples which was also a conference high.
With the type of season he had, it was no surprise that Hext was named to the All-Southland Conference first team for his outstanding performance as well as the All-SLC tournament team.
Hext and the Cowboys made it to the Southland Conference tournament in Hammond. Unfortunately they did not win the tournament to qualify for the NCAA tournament. However the Cowboys had a fantastic season and Cooper was a big part of the Pokes’ success!
We recently spoke with Hext about his future in the game of baseball and he said that he is going to Pennsylvania to play in an independent minor league that is governed by the MLB. It serves as a smaller farm league system for the MiLB which scouts from the MLB and MiLB can recruit and or call up a player to any level which means Hext has a solid chance of being called up to either a single A, double A, or triple A MiLB team and eventually the good possibility of being called up to the big leagues which is every baseball players goal and dream. Regardless of where he plays or what level of professional baseball he plays we are all still very proud of the young man he has become. He has set a great example for the younger kids in DeQuincy that dream of playing baseball at the next level!
Cooper, you are truly DeQuincy Made!!
