By CURTIS ROCKWELL/Sports Director

LUCEDALE — For the past two seasons, on the march to back-to-back Class 6A state championship appearances, the George County baseball team developed some pretty intense rivalries in Region 4-6A play.

But next year, as the Rebels look to make a third straight trip to Trustmark Park to battle for the title for a sixth time in 12 seasons, the Rebels will have to do so with some new key pieces as well as in a new region.

George County, despite some initial push back, will settle into Region 3-6A next season along with West Jones, Hattiesburg, and Terry as well as a pair of teams out of the Jackson area in Forrest Hill and Jim Hill.  

The Rebels will replace Pearl River Central in that new revamped league alignment, and the Blue Devils will take George County’s previous spot in Region 4-6A for at least the next two school years.

So GCHS won’t be facing Picayune, Pascagoula and Hancock among others in region action next year. And while the Rebels have faced West Jones in a best-of-three Class 6A South State playoff series each of the past two seasons as well as Terry to open the postseason this year and Jim Hill last season, those two teams will now become region foes for GCHS.

PRC has won the Region 3-6A title the past two seasons, but the Blue Devils obviously won’t three-peat just like the Rebels won in Region 4-6A.

Prior to that, West Jones went unbeaten to take the region title in 2023.

Hattiesburg made it to the Class 6A South State Semifinal round this season before falling to PRC. The Blue Devils fell to George County in the Class 6A South State championship round the past two seasons.

So, on paper at least, it appears that the Rebels may not be joining as strong of a region as they have been in the past two years, it’s no doubt not as strong as the one GCHS competed in the past few times it competed in the more northern of the two leagues.

That’s because in the past, over the past decade plus each time the Rebels were relegated to the lower region number they had to share a region with perennial state powers Oak Grove and Petal as well as Meridian among others.

But, as the Rebels move forward into next season to compete in a new region they’ll also do so without a lot of key contributors over the past two seasons that helped lead GCHS to back-to-back state championship appearances as eight seniors depart.

Next season, veteran GCHS head coach Brandon Davis will look to Carson Pierce, Grant Reeves and Cayler Havard at the plate as well as Ulysses Pascaul in the field and Pierce and Chandler Cameron among others on the pitcher’s mound.

This season, the junior Pierce served as the number two starting pitcher and went 6-4 on the hill with 6 appearances including 10 starts.

He also hit .295 with 16 RBIs while sophomore Reeves batted .312 with 24 RBIs, four doubles, three triples and team-high four home runs.

Havard hit .282 with a team-high 32 RBIs, seven doubles and a pair of home runs.

Cameron produced a few effective outings on the mound in relief, and Peyton Havard, who is also returning, saw action in 30 games mostly as a pinch runner.