Of all the things that made him a successful high school baseball player, there’s one that Hayes Loper put above the rest.

“Hard work pays off whenever you’re consistent with it. Consistency has been my biggest thing,” Loper said. “Last season I would be hot and then I would be cold. This year, just staying consistent was the biggest thing to help me play as well as I did.”

All the extra cuts in the cage, reps in the outfield, and other assorted drills paid off for Loper. Warren Central’s senior center fielder was named to the Mississippi Association of Coaches MHSAA Class 6A All-State team after batting .392 this season.

A few days after that honor was announced, he got another by signing with Southwest Mississippi Community College.

“It’s crazy. It feels almost surreal. You hope for it and dream for it, but when it actually happens it just feels insane,” Loper said. “Last year I thought, ‘I’m good enough to do it.’ But about 2 1/2 weeks into this season it clicked and was a little more reassuring. It was like, this is something I can do and be successful at.”

Loper finished the 2024 season by getting hits in his last four games as Warren Central reached the Class 6A championship series. He carried that hot streak into 2025 and made it last all the way through.
The Vikings’ leadoff hitter started the season with a seven-game hitting streak, during which he batted .565. He wound up reaching base in 29 of 31 games, and had a hit or scored a run in 23 of them.

Loper led the Vikings — and Warren County — with a .392 batting average. He had 38 hits, 10 doubles, four triples, 18 RBIs and scored 30 runs.

“It makes it a lot easier when you start hot. You have a little more wiggle room,” Loper said. “If you start hot, your confidence at the plate skyrockets. You feel like anything that gets thrown to you, you can hit. It could be bounced five feet in front of the plate and you still feel like you can hit it. It might be a little bit of delusion, but when you’re that hot that’s how it feels.”

The consistency did not go unnoticed. Several of Mississippi’s junior colleges recruited Loper as the season progressed and he wound up picking Southwest Mississippi over offers from Hinds and Copiah-Lincoln.
Besides liking the coaching staff and facilities, Loper said Southwest offered something the others couldn’t — an immediate opportunity.

“Hinds and Co-Lin had offered spots. But Southwest had lost all three starting outfielders and the coaches were amazing. Everything they stand for is awesome,” Loper said. “Playing time was a big, big thing. You’re not ever guaranteed to play. But when there’s three open spots you feel a lot better about your chances to play.”

Loper was a two-year starter in center field for Warren Central, but said he doesn’t care which of the outfield spots he’s asked to play at Southwest.

“Wherever they put me is OK,” he said with a laugh. “I don’t care, as long as I’m on the field.”
Loper raised his batting average by 142 points this season. The only offensive category he did not improve in was RBIs, where he only had 18 compared to 20 in 2024.

Seeing that improvement, as well as the honors and accolades that came with it, was rewarding. He’s not resting on any of it, though.

“It’s great to have all that beside your name. But at the end of the day you can be No. 1 in the state and it doesn’t matter if you don’t perform. As long as you keep performing you just get more and more,” he said. “It felt really good to have all that extra work pay off because it doesn’t always pay off for everybody.”