GAINESVILLE, Ga. — Coaching changes, personnel changes, and plenty of other uncertainties highlighted a busy and some deemed important offseason for the Gainesville baseball team. The Red Elephants were coming off another losing season and a quick playoff exit in 2024.
Despite bringing in former Parkview head coach Chan Brown to oversee the program, the 2025 campaign did not begin the way many were hoping. Gainesville sat 2-11 after a 7-game losing streak that included ugly blowout losses to Forsyth Central (12-0) and Jackson County (15-1) and a series sweep at the hands of Roswell to open their Region 7-5A schedule.
“We had to learn how to show up each day with higher expectations and want to win,” Brown recalled this week about the beginning of the season. “We had to learn to take care of all the little things first and play the game hard and the right way. It just takes time to change expectations and the speed of the game we want to play. But the kids have been great since day one.”
The losing streak eventually stretched into their second series against Milton, dropping their second 1-run game (9-8) for an 0-4 start. It was looking like any thoughts of making the playoffs was quickly fading just barely over a week into region play.
But that’s when Brown noticed something.
“We had to take away all the freebies -- walks, errors, hit batters -- and somewhere in that Milton series the kids started believing in the process,” he said.
They rallied from a 3-2 deficit, gave up a 5-3 lead late, and then exploded for six runs in the ninth in an 11-5 victory in extra innings in the second game against the Eagles. They haven’t looked back since.
After losing three straight 1-run games, a young Red Elephants’ squad (12-14, 10-5 Region 7-5A) with just three seniors on the roster, learned how to finally win in the tight games. They have gone 6-1 in their last 7 games decided by 2 runs or less. In their current 6-game region win streak, they are 5-0 in such games and have won 10 of their last 11 region games overall to jump into a tie for second place with Johns Creek (17-7, 10-5 Region 7-5A).
Both teams are just one game behind leader Roswell (18-8, 11-4 Region 7-5A) and will open a three-game series on Wednesday in Johns Creek. However, they are also just one game ahead of fourth-place Seckinger (15-12, 9-6 Region 7-5A) in the standings. There is little to no margin for error.
Gainesville, despite the growing pains and rough start, is very much alive for a region title. But the Red Elephants will need help. They would need to sweep the Gladiators and hope that Chattahoochee (8-14, 4-11 Region 7-5A) can sweep Roswell at the same time. The Red Elephants are looking for their first region title since 2016, when they advanced to the Class 5A semifinals before losing to Jake Fromm and Houston County.
Big Red owns the head-to-head tiebreaker over Seckinger in the event of a tie, and a series win over Johns Creek could give them no worse than second place and home-field advantage in the first round of the playoffs.
They will need to continue to get the solid pitching they have gotten from the trio of juniors Dawson Vaughn and Cohen Miller and sophomore Daniel Rico. As a team, they have given up just 33 runs (2.2 runs/game) in region play.
“Our three starting pitchers have been a huge deal in the turnaround,” Brown said. “We will need them to keep the freebie numbers down and play good defense behind them.”
The key, however, may be the offense. They are averaging just 4.0 rpg on the season (104 total runs) but have scored 76 (5.06 rpg) in region play. At the plate, Miller, Graham Fleming, Andrew Rice, CJ Saudarg, Adrian Medina, and Asher Stephens lead a group that seems to find a different catalyst every game.
“Our offense has done a good job of playing small ball and getting timely hitting,” Brown said. “We just need to play the game the right way and control the controllable. And have some timely hits.”
First pitch is set for 6 p.m. on Wednesday and the series will head to Ivey-Watson on Thursday (6 p.m.) and conclude on Friday back at Johns Creek (6 p.m.).
