Tulane Baseball’s Kody Hoese earns April Athlete of the Month honor

NEW ORLEANS – Kody Hoese, Tulane baseball’s star third baseman, has been selected as the Greater New Orleans Amateur Athlete of the Month for April. Monthly award-winners are chosen in voting by the Greater New Orleans Sports Award Selection Committee, sponsored by the Allstate Sugar Bowl.

Hoese finished the month of April batting .464 at the plate, going 32-for-69 with a .971 slugging percentage and .524 on-base percentage. The Indiana product had 32 RBI and 30 runs scored over the course of the month, with eight doubles and nine home runs. He earned multiple hits in 12 games, including becoming the first Tulane player since 2008 to earn five hits in a single game. He had a hit in 14 of the 16 games Tulane played last month. Hoese drove in two or more RBI seven times, including driving in 12 over the course of five consecutive games.

Going into the final month of the season, Hoese was tied for the lead in the country with 21 total home runs and home runs per game (0.48), second in slugging percentage (.842), fourth in total hits (75), fifth in runs scored (75), sixth in runs per game (1.39), seventh in hits per game (1.7), and 15th in batting average (.408).

All of those numbers also led the American Athletic Conference. Hoese had the longest hitting streak for any player at 19 games and reached base in 35 consecutive games which is also a team-long streak. Earlier this year Hoese became the seventh player in program history to hit three home runs in a game. He earned The American’s Player of the Week award twice, the LSWA Hitter of the Week award twice, and the AAC’s weekly honor roll twice.

Hoese was named to the D1 Baseball and Perfect Game/Rawlings Midseason All-America First Team, as well as the watch list for the Golden Spikes award and Bobby Bragan Collegiate Slugger award. The Kansas City Royals selected him in the 30th round of last year’s draft as a draft eligible sophomore.

Hoese was selected over two other outstanding local stars. Cody Shaffer led Brother Martin to its second consecutive Allstate Sugar Bowl/LHSAA bowling state championship on April 4. The next day, Schaffer won the LHSAA singles championship, striking out in the 10th frame of the final game to finish with a 926 series (on games of 211, 257, 213 and 245). On the collegiate level, Xavier’s Shalysa Wray, a freshman from Jamaica, became the first woman to win the 100- and 400-meter dashes at the Gulf Coast Athletic Conference Championships. She also had a pair of seconds in that meet — the 1,600 relay and 200 — to score 30 points and help the Gold Nuggets repeat as the league’s team champion.

The Greater New Orleans Sports Selection Committee has been selecting an Amateur Athlete of the Month each month since 1957. The athlete must be a native of the greater New Orleans area or must compete for a team in the metropolitan region in order to be eligible. Each of the monthly award winners will be honored in the summer at the Greater New Orleans Sports Hall of Fame Induction and Awards Ceremony, hosted by the Allstate Sugar Bowl.