Aug. 16, 2004
FT. WORTH, Texas – Lobo centerfielder Matt Young (Murphy, Texas/Plano East High School) was selected as the Most Outstanding Player of the 2004 Texas Collegiate League Championship Series after leading the Coppell Copperheads to the league title.
Young, who is entering his senior year at New Mexico, had a pair of hits in each of the final two games of the best of three series vs. the Graham Roughnecks. The lefthanded batter had a pair of home runs and three RBI in Coppell’s 5-4 loss in Game 2 and was 2-for-5 with a run scored in a 5-4 victory that gave the Copperheads the championship on Aug. 14 in Graham, Texas.
Young batted .272 in 51 games for Coppell during the regular season. He led the league with 39 stolen bases (in 43 attempts), 44 runs scored, and 44 walks, and had the TCL’s third highest on-base percentage at .430. Young also played in the Texas Collegiate League All-Star Game in July and in the Dr. Pepper TCL Futures Game Sunday (Aug. 15) at Ameriquest Field in Arlington.
Coppell finished second in the Tris Speaker Division with a 30-21 regular season record. The Copperheads swept first place McKinney in two games in the Speaker Division playoffs before beating Graham, two games to one, in the finals.
The Texas Collegiate League completed its first season of operation with the Futures Game on Sunday. The wooden bat summer league was comprised of 225 collegiate players from 75 schools on eight teams in North Central Texas.
Young earned All-Mountain West honors for the second time in his career this past season for the Lobos after leading the team in runs (60) and on-base percentage (.462). He was second in the nation in triples (12 – 0.21 per game) and led the Mountain West with a .517 average with runners in scoring position. Young, who batted .381 for the season, is one of only five Lobos in UNM history to reach the 200-run and 200-hit plateau for his career.