Friends and rival coaches Maness and Holmes face off in one final baseball series

JAMESTOWN - Friends, rivals and the two winningest baseball coaches in Guilford County high school history, Donnie Maness and Reid Holmes will faceoff for one final series when Ragsdale and Southwest Guilford play on Tuesday and Friday.

Maness, who began his Ragsdale tenure in 1996, is the county's all-time wins leader with 458, while Holmes is No. 2 with 451 victories since taking over at Southwest in 2000. The record in games against each other is unknown, but Maness has an idea.

"We have probably played 50 times against each other at least and I have no idea what the record is, but I'm betting it's probably close to 25-25 if I had to guess," Maness said. "And it's just kind of strange; we seem to be kind of attached to one another in a natural way."

Holmes basically agrees.

"I couldn't have said it any better than what Donnie just said," Holmes added. "It's certainly a rival because of the school's proximity and it just kind of developed that way over the years, but the friendship supersedes that in regard to certainly being very competitive between the lines but as Donnie stated, our families have known each other over the years and our brothers, as Donnie stated, played together.

"Donnie and I competed against each other when we were in high school and it has just always been very competitive but yet friendship is super important and that is something I treasure and I'll take with me as I start to my next chapter."

Maness graduated from Ragsdale, and Holmes from Western Guilford, in 1988, and their deep-rooted relationship goes back to at least then. Both are English teachers at their respective schools and both come from die-hard baseball families.

With Holmes' expected retirement after this season, the upcoming home-and-home Metro 6A/7A Conference series would be the last guaranteed games between the two coaches, although they might meet in next week's conference tournament. They won't meet in the state playoffs as Ragsdale is in Class 6A and Southwest is in Class 7A.

This week, the teams play at Ragsdale on Tuesday at 6 p.m. and at Southwest on Friday at 7 p.m., with both teams tied for second in the conference at 6-2. Grimsley is in first at 8-0, having swept both teams earlier this season. Holmes considers an intense encounter.

"I don't necessarily want to compare it to Duke-Carolina, but Jay Bilas always says, ‘It always lives up to the hype,' and it always seems like our games, our two or three games a year, end up doing that," Holmes said.

"Not to say that next week's will because you just never know from year to year, but they are always super competitive and what makes it even more special is my players know Donnie's players and they are friends off the field and there is something about playing a friend and someone you consider a brother ... "

"And cousins," Maness chimed in, referencing his son, Kyle Maness, playing for Ragsdale and his nephew, Ryan, playing for Southwest.

Maness, the oldest of three children, played college ball at Barton College before returning to Ragsdale as an assistant coach and then becoming the head coach. As an assistant, he coached his two younger brothers, Chris and Brian. Chris is a current High Point University coach who also played in the Philadelphia Phillies organization.

Holmes is the middle child of three, with his father Jim Holmes being a former Elon baseball player. His younger brother Michael Holmes, currently the San Francisco Giants senior director of amateur scouting, played on youth all-star teams with longtime friend Chris Maness and was a standout player for Wake Forest before going into coaching and scouting.

Holmes and Maness played against each other in high school, with Maness joking that their brothers got better genetics than they did, although Maness was an All-Guilford selection as a junior and senior. Both were about 5-foot-10, 160 pounds, with Maness playing third base for the Tigers and Holmes playing shortstop and second base for the Fightin' Hornets.

"At family get-togethers, you are probably talking baseball," Maness said.

As a coach, Maness has been described as conservative in his tactics but likes to think of himself as consistent both in approach and player treatment. He described Holmes as tough as nails, with his teams known for good pitching, good defense, grinding out at-bats and being fundamentally sound.

"We are probably very similar," Maness said. "I think we both are stressed. Sometimes, I look across the field and I see Reid looks a little stressed and I'm feeling the exact same thing because like I said, we are very rarely in a five or six-run game."

Maness fondly remembers his Tigers' 2006 1-0 state quarterfinals win over the Cowboys, during which his pitcher Trevor Mullins struck out 15 of 24 batters in a duel with Cowboys' hurler Jonathan Smith, who gave up just four hits and no earned runs but fell victim as the team's only two errors put Brandon Phelps on base and later scored him from third.

The following season, Southwest's Jeremy Hall hit the Cowboys' first home run of the season in the top of the seventh to tie the second round playoff game at 3. Later, with two outs, Nick Shields got hit by a pitch with the bases loaded to break the tie. In the bottom of the seventh, Ragsdale's Jason Wallace had a one-out double but was stranded.

Last season, the teams played three times and Ragsdale swept, all in extra innings. The Tigers won 3-1 in nine innings, 4-3 in 11 innings and won the conference tournament semifinals game, 1-0, in eight innings.

"You know, the thing about playing Donnie and the thing about playing Ragsdale is that no matter how good either team is every year, the games are always close," Holmes said. "Both teams are normally good, so that just adds to it … "

Holmes will retire both as a coach and teacher, effective June 30. Maness will be retiring as a teacher after this school year but hopes to coach for four more seasons. Just one more run of rivalry games to go.

"It's just always a battle," Maness said. "You are playing somebody that is really well-coached and they know how to play the game the right way and their fan base is really knowledgeable over there as well. It's just a tough person to deal with in Reid. I'm not glad he is retiring, but I am glad that we don't have to fight anymore. We can just focus on being buddies."

Copyright 2026 Tribune Content Agency. All Rights Reserved.