‘I’m just proud to be here’: McGuffie used leadership, heart to secure starting spot

Published 5:00 am Sunday, April 24, 2022

For Highland Baptist senior Thomas McGuffie, his last season with the Bears baseball team was his first time playing as a regular starter.

The outfielder secured his spot under new head coach Greg Lofton by exhibiting not only a keen understanding of the game but also by stepping up to a leadership role in his senior season.

“He’s been here for years and couldn’t really get a starting position, so this is his first true season as a starter,” Lofton said. “He’s been doing really, really well this year and I’m excited for him.”

McGuffie said that he’s been playing baseball at Highland since he was in middle school, always in an outfield position.

“I’ve been playing since eighth grade,” he said. “I’ve always played right field, but this year I moved to centerfield.”

Despite not having a regular starting spot on the team in the past, McGuffie said that he took his chance this season to step up and be a leader for his team.

“I finally got my chance this year so I made it happen,” he said. “I was a senior, so I have priority over a lot of people. I had the chance to be a leader, so I took advantage of it.”

McGuffie recorded 64 plate appearances this season, ending the year with a .220 batting average and a .601 combined on-base and slugging percentage.

As an outfielder, McGuffie also finished the season with 24 putouts and only six errors. His fielding percentage was .800.

McGuffie is one of two seniors on the Highland team this year, and as such, bears a lot of the responsibility for playing a leadership role on the team. He said that he joins fellow senior Alex Mauney in upholding the standards on the team.

“We make sure that if somebody is doing something wrong, we correct them,” he said. “We show them the right way to do it and try to build from there.”

The Bears finished the season with a 5-15 record, which rules them out of a playoff spot this season. McGuffie said that despite the poor record, he enjoyed his senior year.

“It hasn’t been the best season, especially coming from last year,” he said. “We had a lot of people who left that were a big part of the team, but we played as hard as we could even without them. I’m just proud to be here. I have a good outlook on things. I think that the people that we’ve led this season have a good mentality and I think that they’re going to be a good team next year.”