There were moments during the 2019 baseball season when Saint James coach Keith Lucky wasn’t sure if Brock Woodham would return to the mound for the next inning.
There were moments in the 2020 season when Lucky wasn’t sure if he could pry the ball out of Woodham’s pitching hand to give it to someone else.
“He grew up so much in a year’s time, it was unbelievable,” Lucky said. “Last year, I was trying to keep him in and get his confidence up on the mound. This year, he pitched a complete game for me and last year he wouldn’t have even thought about doing it.”
His development into a senior leader for the Trojans earned Woodham selection as the Capital City Conference Player of the Year in a season cut in half by the coronavirus pandemic. Woodham played catcher, center fielder and pitcher for the Trojans, using a personal makeover to transform Saint James into the front runner for the area title before the cancelation of the season cut short any postseason dreams.
The Trojans swept a three-game series from Pike Road to climb above .500 for the season but had won five of their six area games to take the lead in the Area 5 race. And a good reason for that surge was the play of Woodham, who took the mound as the number two pitcher and provided steady defense in center field.
“He loved to catch,” Lucky said. “He had more experience than Alex (Whisenhunt) behind the plate but you’ve got to arrange your team to make it the strongest you can and it was a better team with Brock in the outfield and Alex behind the plate.”
On the mound, he compiled a 2.62 earned run average. At the plate, he was batting .531 with six doubles and 20 RBIs in 13 games.
“He was on a rampage,” Lucky said.
Trinity coach Ken Whittle was selected as the CCC Coach of the Year after guiding the Wildcats to a 13-3 record heading into spring break despite having to replace six of eight starters in the field and an entire pitching staff from last season.
The players on the 2020 All-Capital City Conference team were chosen in a different manner from teams in the past. Because play was suspended in mid-March by the coronavirus pandemic and the coaches did not have the opportunity to play all of their conference and region rivals, they did not select a team, only the players from their respective teams.
As a result, the coaches were only asked to select a limited number of players from their team and were not asked to vote for the player or coach of the year.
Trinity’s Will Aaron, Catholic’s Christian Ivey, Alabama Christian’s Zac Westbrook and Saint James’ Carson Howard earned first-team status as juniors a year ago and all were selected by their coaches for the same honor in 2020.
Woodham made the All-CCC team a year ago as an honorable mention selection.
2020 All-Capital City Conference Baseball Team
1B – Cam Holmes, Sr., Montgomery Academy
2B – Jon Clarke Woodward, Sr., Montgomery Academy
SS – Will Aaron, Sr., Trinity
3B – Copeland Hilyer, Sr., Alabama Christian
C – Alex Whisenhunt, Sr., Saint James
OF – KJ Kendrick, Sr., Alabama Christian
OF – Nate Downes, Sr., Catholic
OF – Mac Main, Sr., Montgomery Academy
DH – Zac Westbrook, Jr., Alabama Christian
Util – Carson Howard, Jr., Saint James
P – Christian Ivey, Sr., Catholic
P – Coleman Ellis, Jr., Trinity
P – Brock Woodham, Sr., Saint James
Player of the Year – Brock Woodham, Saint James
Coach of the Year – Ken Whittle, Trinity
Honorable mention: Grayson Ashe, DH-C-P, So., Trinity; Ethan Beard, 2B, Fr., Saint James; Brandon Bice, 2B, Jr., Alabama Christian; Morris Carmichael, P, Sr., Catholic; Wilson Carter, P-OF, Sr, Saint James; Collier Dean, DH, Sr., Saint James; Ben Easterling, P-1B, So., Trinity; Dean Johnson, P-3B, Jr., Catholic; Britton Kohn, P-SS, Jr., Montgomery Academy; Jennings Lawson, 3B, Sr., Montgomery Academy; Preston Perry, C-P, Sr., Alabama Christian; William Roberson, OF-P, Jr., Trinity; Colby Zaleski, P, Sr., Catholic.