If there was one word to describe the Stanhope Elmore baseball team this year — it’d be resilience.
The Mustangs rebounded from a 10-25 record last season to 26-16 in 2025 reaching the Final Four for the second time in three seasons. For his efforts, Stanhope Elmore baseball coach DK Shuman is the 2025 Elmore County Baseball Coach of the Year.
Shuman learned a lot about his team during the early stretch where they jumped out to an 11-3 record. However, the Mustangs started to fall in a slump dropping their next six games. But it was their return to the field against Hoover where Shuman saw the true identity of his team.
“There was one game that showed, ‘Oh, these guys are that kind of resilient and capable of beating anybody when they play the right way,’” Shuman said. “We had lost like two straight weeks in a row going into spring break; we weren't playing very good baseball. First game of spring break, we’re at Hoover. That's supposed to be one of the premier teams in the state in (Class) 7A and they got all these SEC guys and everything, and we go out, and he hands me the lineup card, and they're throwing their number one, I'm throwing our number one. And I said, ‘Well, you know it's going to take us everything we got.’”
Everything they had is what Shuman got in return. Stanhope Elmore surged into a five-run lead, holding Hoover at bay to pull away with the 5-1 victory.
It was in games similar to Hoover that Stanhope Elmore embraced its identity. Regardless of how the opposing team was ranked or had a plethora of Division I talent, the only thing that mattered to Stanhope Elmore was adding a tick to the win column.
“From that point forward, there was never a point that I felt like we lined up against somebody that we didn't believe we could beat,” Shuman said. “We played some really good teams along that stretch, Helena ranked top three all year long, and Spanish Fort was in and out of the top 10 all year, and they just didn't back down. They didn't care, they found a way to win, and they did it. The best part about that group, though, is that they didn't care how we won. Nobody cared who did it. They just cared that we won.”
And win the Mustangs did.
Following spring break, Stanhope Elmore went undefeated in the Class 6A Area 4 play to snatch the No. 1 seed heading into the playoffs. It took series wins over Theodore, Helena and Spanish Fort before falling to Chelsea in the semifinals. But even so, Shuman gave all his praise to the players for putting their all on the field to have the year they did.
“I wish that I could tell you that that's because of me, but I don't believe it is,” Shuman said. “I think I just showed them the path at the end of the day. Everybody knows what it takes to be successful, but you have to be willing to do it. The group of guys that are playing for you have to be willing to buy into that. And from the get-go, we've had a ton of buy-in. From the very beginning, I showed up to a group of kids that wanted to be good and wanted to be better, and were willing to trust me and do the things I asked them to.”
