2024 ALL-CAPITAL CITY CONFERENCE
BASEBALL TEAM
Published June 3, 2024
By TIM GAYLE
Trojans' Offord, Trinity's Whittle headline CCC baseball team
Saint James junior Tabor Offord led
the Trojans in hitting and earned run average to
earn Capital City Conference Player of the Year
honors.
Tabor Offord had a breakout season in 2023, but this past season was even more productive for the Saint James’ pitcher and outfielder.
“This year, I was able to pitch him a lot more because basketball finished a little early and we were able to get him going before the season started and he ended up being a dominant force on the mound for me,” Saint James coach Keith Lucky said. “Everything he did was phenomenal, even his base running. He just came into his own.”
Capital City Conference coaches took notice, selecting Offord as the 2024 CCC Player of the Year.
“Tabor’s always had a God-given gift,” Lucky said. “He’s had all the talent in the world. I think a lot of it in previous years was his confidence. But he works real hard at it and he’s just one of those rare athletes. He reminds me of a left-handed T.R. Robertson,” the former Saint James star who was the CCC Player of the Year in 2017 and 2018 and is currently with the Single-A Fort Wayne TinCaps in the Padres’ organization.
At the plate, Offord batted .458 in 32 games, getting 49 hits and 43 RBIs while stealing 17 bases in 18 attempts. He made just two errors in the field and had a slugging percentage of .692.
On the mound, he allowed just 14 earned runs in 54.2 innings, striking out 90 and walking 29 to compile a 1.79 earned run average.
“He hits the baseball, he can run like a deer and he covers more ground than I’ve seen anybody in the outfield in a long time,” Lucky said. “The great thing is I’ve got him one more year.”
Offord is one of five players to repeat as first-team selections, along with Trinity third baseman Brady Rascoll, Catholic center fielder Caleb McCreary, Montgomery Academy center fielder Rick McBride and Trinity pitcher Walker McClinton.
McCreary, Montgomery Academy catcher Parker Cook and Trinity designated hitter Fleming Hall earned first-team status in 2022 as well as in 2024.
The Capital City Conference Coach of the Year was Trinity’s Ken Whittle, who returned to the field for 2024 after a two-year retirement and promptly led the Wildcats to the quarterfinals of the 4A state playoffs.
“It did (have a different feel) because I had been separated from it for two years,” Whittle said. “My wife and I and grandkids were doing things grandparents do and having a good time. I was doing things together with my wife that we didn’t get to do. I coached three sports at Trinity, 43 years of that. We had our life together and we were enjoying it.”
But when his successor, Jarrod Cook, left for Lee-Scott Academy two weeks before the start of school, Trinity administrators formed a search committee that included Whittle and athletic director Brian Seymore came up with the perfect candidate.
“He said don’t say anything, just listen and see what you think,” Whittle recalled. “I said, ‘Who’s our guy?’ and he said, ‘You.’ I said, ‘Coach, that was not the answer I was expecting.’ I did not expect that to be thrown out, I really didn’t.
“But with my daughters’ blessing, my wife’s blessing, we felt like the Lord would allow me to go back and show me some things that maybe I needed to see.”
It would just be a five-month interim job before administrators went in search of a permanent candidate, so Whittle consulted some coaches he trusted to form a coaching staff that included Chad Mansmann, who was already on the staff; Phillip Morgan, a veteran assistant recently retired from Andalusia; former assistant Jon Shamburger, who was still on the school’s coaching staff; and former player Carter Clark.
“That was the decision when I finally committed,” Whittle said. “We’ve got Chad and he’s going to be the third-base coach, Phillip is going to be the first-base coach. What I did and didn’t do (in the past) is not relevant. Baseball is baseball, but there are certain things we can improve on and I thought Chad brought that to the game. I felt comfortable with that. I see it from a different angle now.
“The Lord helps idiots, fools and people with egos and I have all three ingredients in my body and my mind. The camaraderie of our staff was so neat. We didn’t have any resentment. We talked about it, we hashed out the stuff we were wanting to do and how we wanted to do it. Then we believed what we wanted to do.”
Through the first part of the season, there were plenty of ups and downs as the coaching staff tried to put the right players in the right roles.
“Even though these (senior) guys were guys that Coach Cook and I picked, they were ninth graders then,” Whittle said. “For the last two years, I didn’t know what was going on. We had to learn where our strengths are as a group.”
After losing all four games in the Gulf Coast Classic, the Wildcats were at a crossroads.
“I started questioning myself,” Whittle said. “Do I really have the stuff to right the ship?”
The Wildcats responded with a 12-game winning streak to close out the regular season.
“Winning breeds winning,” he said. “It also breeds confidence. It also breeds trust. All of that came back to our players and we didn’t stop, from that time on.”
Whittle’s return earned the coach his 800th career victory and he can now retire with an 809-384 record that only a few coaches in this state can top. He got the Wildcats (26-13) back into the quarterfinals of the state playoffs for the 20th time since the current playoff format was expanded to include area champions and runners-up in 1989.
And just as he did in 2021, when he retired the first time, he’s going to miss the players and the coaches that made the 2024 season so enjoyable.
“The reason I’m going to miss it is I have a relationship with Chad, Phillip, Jon, Carter and the guys,” Whittle said. “Relationships are a big deal and when you can have relationships with your team and your coaching staff, it’s so much fun because everybody’s on the same page and everybody believes in what you’re trying to do together.
“I believe in team. Sometimes we forget it is the team. It’s not the third baseman, it’s not the first baseman, it’s not the pitcher on the mound. It’s us, us together, and we can accomplish so much more when it’s about us.”
ALL CAPITAL CITY CONFERENCE
BASEBALL
1B -- Charlie Cutler, So., Saint James
2B -- Jordan Jackson, Fr., Catholic
SS -- Landon Nelson, Sr., Alabama Christian
3B -- Brady Rascoll, Sr., Trinity
C -- Parker Cook, Sr., Montgomery Academy
OF -- Xavier Boswell, Jr., Trinity
OF -- Caleb McCreary, Sr., Catholic
OF -- Rick McBride, Sr., Montgomery Academy
P -- Tabor Offord, Jr., Saint James
P -- Walker McClinton, Sr., Trinity
P -- Oscar Fiore, Jr., Montgomery Academy
DH -- Fleming Hall, Jr., Trinity
Util -- Mac Moorer, Sr., Alabama Christian
PLAYER OF THE YEAR: Tabor Offord, Saint James
COACH OF THE YEAR -- Ken Whittle, Trinity
HONORABLE MENTION: Wilson Albrecht, Jr., 2B, Trinity; Caden Anderson, Sr., OF, Saint James; Cole Anderson, Sr., SS, Saint James; Cooper Bernier, Sr., SS, Trinity; Jackson Burton, Util, Jr., ACA; Grant Cornette, 2B, Sr., Alabama Christian; Andrew Hosein, Jr., IF-P, Montgomery Academy; Clint Houser, Sr., OF, Saint James; John Allen Jones, Jr., DH-OF, Montgomery Academy; Dawson Knowles, So., C-DH, Saint James; Ethan Levanda, 8th, P-3B, Catholic; Jackson McGuire Jr., C-OF, Alabama Christian; Patton Mitchell, 8th, 1B-P, Trinity; Benton Offord, Fr., C-DH, Saint James.
RETURN TO THE CAPITAL CITY CONFERENCE BASEBALL HOMEPAGE