Social Circle's Chris Davis has spent most of his life around the diamond, but this season will mark the first time in 15 years he'll lead a baseball program.

Davis, the school's longtime head softball coach, will pull double duty in 2026. He was named as the new manager of Redskins' baseball last summer after the team won 30 games and made the Class 1A, Division I Sweet 16.

"I played in college until I got hurt and couldn't play anymore, and started coaching while I was still in school around 1999," Davis said. "I coached baseball until about 2010-11 and stepped away because being a dad is important. Coaching baseball is something I've done for a while and was my background before softball."

Having extensive knowledge of the game, Davis hopes to get a relatively young team ready for another historic season.

Last year, Social Circle broke the school record for total runs scored, stolen bases, team earned run average and wins. That culminated in the Redskins winning their first region title in six years.

But a good amount of the player that helped make those things happen graduated.

"On one hand, we graduated nine seniors and only return three seniors with consistent varsity experience, so we're young in that regard," Davis said. "But a lot of the returning guys do have varsity experience. The magnitude of their roles will increase, but I'm very impressed with the amount of high character guys on the team."

The three oldest returning Redskins are Brayden Allen, Jake Blankenship and Barrett Bramblett.

Allen locked down the hot corner as a junior and produced at the plate. He finished last season with a .440 batting average and drove in 24 hits across 115 plate appearances.

Bramblett and Blankenship return as an outfield duo that combined for 40 RBIs on 53 hits last year as well as 26 steals.

Ian Miller, Garrett Brooks and Cooper Davis also bring valuable varsity experience back to the squad.

Miller was named as the county Breakout Player of the Year in 2025 after leading the team with a .480 batting average. As a sophomore, the second baseman turned 24 hits into 21 RBIs while only striking out six times.

Brooks brings defensive prowess as the Redskins' shortstop, and Davis returns a big bat as the team's designated hitter in most games last year.

With only a few pieces in the batting order left to figure out, Davis's main focus is getting his pitching staff ready for the long haul.

Social Circle graduated its ace, Caden Richardson, who touted a 2.05 ERA and 70 strikeouts across 61 innings pitched as a senior.

"It's the perfect time to bring home the team mentality. We've got to have guys step up to replace [Richardson's] production," Davis said. "He had to replace someone when he was coming up, so that's the normal process of the team. If the kids have the next man up mentality, and they embrace it, that's how we are going to win for a long time."

Jake Frazier and Zach Smallwood are two of the younger arms that are poised to get more innings on the bump this season.

Ultimately, Davis wants the team to learn a lot now, so that it's ready for playoff baseball.

"Instead of focusing on the wins, we've more discussed that we want to be playing when the calendar gets to May," Davis said. "Little things become magnified in the playoffs, so we concentrate so much on those now. We're getting out there as much as possible and trying to maximize the time we do have since there isn't much of an offseason."