By CURTIS ROCKWELL/Sports Director

LUCEDALE — Twenty seven years ago, Brandon Davis was a senior standout catcher for George County as the Rebels captured the 1997 Class AA state baseball championship.
Today, after leading his alma mater to its second state baseball championship ever, Davis has been honored as the top prep baseball head coach in the state of Mississippi.
Davis was named the 2023-2024 “Coach of the Year” as presented by the Mississippi High School Association/National Federation of State High School Associations earlier this week. There is only one award covering the entire state for each sport.
“Thankful to the MHSAA for selecting me with this honor,” Davis said. “Also, I had great coaches in front of me that showed me what it was supposed to look like such as Scott Bray, Bruce Thornton, Cooper Farris and Steve Kittrell.”

Davis and his Rebels won the Class 6A State championship in a two game sweep over Warren Central in late May with a school record 30-5 mark. The final win marked his 400th overall as a head coach.
He was also named Class 6A Coach of the Year, alongside his son, Ben Davis, who received the Class 6A Player of the Year. Along with Ben, three other Rebels were named Class 6A All-state including Preston McAdory, Tripp Lightsey, and Canyon Reeves.

“It’s why I came home, to win more championships for George County.” Davis, now in his 13th season at the helm of the Rebels, said. “”And it’s kinda surreal, that Ben is on this team after I played on the last state championship team here at George County. It’s an honor to work in a place where you have unlimited community support and with a staff that is the absolute best in the state.”
As a senior in 1987, Davis hit an outstanding .460 in helping guide his team to the state title. He raised that impressive batting average to over .600 in the playoffs, and earned First Team All-State honors for his play.
Since graduating from GCHS in 1997, Davis hasn’t really lived more than an hour’s drive from Lucedale. Upon graduation, the stalwart catcher for the Rebels played at Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College and the University of South Alabama, then spent two years as an assistant with the Rebels before landing his first head coaching job in 2005 at Richton, some 40 miles north of Lucedale.

Richton won Class 2A state championships under Davis in 2007, 2008 and 2010.
He assumed control of the Rebel program before the start of the 2012 season.
“I always had the ambition to come back here,” Davis said. “It’s home. The parents of our kids have done a great job of raising their kids to be respectful and respond to coaching.”
Since coming back to Lucedale, Davis has now accomplished just about everything a head coach would want. This season was the fifth time in the past decade that he has guided his alma mater into the state finals, but the Rebels came up empty in Class 5A in 2015 as well as Class 6A in 2016 and 2018.
“It was time.”he concluded. “This community has supported us for so long they deserved it. And this team has bought into every aspect of what we have asked them to do and more. So, it was time.”