Just as the first round of the Major League Baseball Amateur Draft was about to close Sunday night, former Barbe High School standout Kyle DeBarge got the call he was waiting for.

The Minnesota Twins used their compensatory pick in the first round to take DeBarge, a record-setting shortstop at UL-Lafayette, 33rd overall.

“It feels great,” DeBarge said. “I can finally say I hit baseball for a living.

“It is a good feeling with everything that I have gone through with my life and all the sacrifices my parents made. All that coming true last night is a feeling that you can’t even describe. I thought it was possible, but once it happened I still don’t think it has kicked in yet. Now that it is a reality, it is pretty cool. I am just blessed. It has been a long journey. I can’t really describe it. It is a great feeling to have.”

DeBarge was the first player from Louisiana picked in this year’s draft and seven spots ahead of LSU slugger Tommy White, who was taken by the Oakland Athletics.

“I was thinking the first round was going to be a long shot,” DeBarge said. “I thought it was going to be the middle second round, but I got surprised. It was a good feeling.”

DeBarge made a few changes heading into his junior season with the Ragin’ Cajuns and greatly increased his draft stock. He batted .355 and hit a school single-season record 21 home runs. He had 19 doubles, 72 RBI and a .699 slugging percentage.

“It was a great season,” DeBarge said. “It honestly couldn’t have gone any better.

“I kind of changed my approach at the plate and cleaned up some things with my swing. It really helped me, obviously. (It was) embracing the grind and embracing the sucky times and just getting through that. It makes the good stuff that happened even better. You grind so much. It is baseball. There are more downs than ups. You get through that and it makes the good times a whole lot better.”

DeBarge is the third Buc taken in the first round after Gavin Cecchini (2012, 12th overall) and Joe Lawrence (1996, 16th overall).

“It is a good group to be in when you have goals like mine like making it to the big leagues, and this is the first step,” DeBarge said.

As of Monday morning, DeBarge said he had not signed a contract yet and was waiting for more information from the Twins. MLB.com listed DeBarge’s approximate pick value at $2.77 million.

DeBarge said he hopes to move quickly through the Twins’ farm system and make his MLB debut.

“It just depends on what the team needs at the time and how you are playing,” DeBarge said.

At Barbe, DeBarge played three positions, including second base as a freshman and third as a sophomore and junior, before moving to catcher as a senior and earning Louisiana Sports Writers Association all-state and American Press All-Southwest Louisiana Big School honors in 2021. He helped lead the Bucs to two state titles including a 39-2 record, Class 5A state championship and Maxpreps.com national championship in 2021.