For a second straight year, the Cincinnati Bearcats baseball team has a player in the running for a top award.
UC sophomore first baseman Quinton Coats has earned semifinalist recognition for the Dick Howser Trophy. That award goes to college baseball’s top player. Past winners include Pirates ace Paul Skenes in 2023 with LSU, Reds pitcher Brady Singer in 2018 with Florida and Madeira High School’s Andrew Benintendi in 2015 with Arkansas.
This is Cincinnati’s second-straight year with such distinction on a National Player of the Year award, following Kerrington Cross in 2025 and Ian Happ in 2015 for the Golden Spikes Award.
Coast, a slugger from Olathe, Kansas, came into UC’s three-game set with Texas Tech May 14 in fifth place nationally with 25 homers. He broke Mike Spina’s 17-year-old UC record at Oral Roberts May 5. He then mashed his 25th at Kansas State on May 9, a game-winning three-run bomb as the Bearcats were trailing 3-1 in the eighth inning.
Cincinnati Bearcats fare well when Quinton Coats homers
UC is 18-3 when he homers (going into the Texas Tech series). He is fifth nationally, and third in the Big 12, in that department, while ranking seventh in total bases (161, five away from UC’s season record) and 10th in RBIs (67).
Coats has a 24-game streak of reaching base safely, second only to freshman Enzo Infelise’s 30-gamer from earlier in the season. Coats also has a 10-game hit streak, finding new ways to counter pitchers.
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: UC Bearcats sophomore Quinton Coats is Dick Howser Trophy semifinalist
Reporting by Scott Springer, Cincinnati Enquirer / Cincinnati Enquirer
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
