Its Finally Here – Week 0 of the High School Football Season
Local Notes
Clinton HS
- Red Devils Open With Woodruff at Home… The Red Devils open their season tonight and find themselves in Class AA down from Class AAA but they have kept some old familiar foes and rivals on their non-region schedule… Tonight they open with just such a team as they host the Woodruff Wolverines who has been a region foe for many years… Last year woodruff went 4-7 overall and 2-2 in region play while Clinton went 10-3 and went undefeated in region play losing in the 3rd round of the playoffs to BHP 27-24… Last year the Red Devils took a 36-20 win over the Wolverines at Woodruff… Brett Sloan is back for his second season as the head Wolverine…The Wolverines quarterback TJ Morris is back for his senior year as well as a couple of other key players so look for them to improve this year… Let’s hope that occurs after they play the Red Devils tonight… There are also some special ceremonies tonight before the game as one of the local officials Mr. Tommy Stribble will wear the white hat tonight for his 700th contest that he has officiated in in 50 years and 50 years ago the Red Devil Tennis team under the direction of Coach Keith Richardson won consecutive state championships will be honored…Go Big Red!
Laurens HS
- Raiders Host Hillcrest… The Raider fans are looking forward to tonight’s opening game at KC Hanna Stadium as the Greg Porter era at LDHS starts… Porter comes to Laurens from Greenville HS and before that he was head coach at Hillcrest HS where he guided the Rams to a state championship and posted a 66-44 record there and went 45-15 at Greenville… This is the first time that Coach Porter has played Hillcrest… Hillcrest went 10-3 last season made it to the third round of the playoffs losing to then region foe JL Mann 12-13 who also defeated the Rams in the regular season 42-35… The Raiders lost to the Rams 55-9 last year in the opening game of the season and Coach Porter and this year’s Raiders will do all they can to prevent that… We will start our Friday Night Insiders at 5:20 and go live to the stadium about 6:40 pm
- JV Football Team Traveled to Hillcrest Last Night… The Raider JV team traveled to Hillcrest last night to take part in a 3 team scrimmage… The Raiders took on the Fountain Fury for 1 quarter of play and fell by a score of 20-14… They then took on the Hillcrest 9th grade team for a quarter of play and that wound up a 6-6 tie…. The last quarter they played was against the Hillcrest JV team and the score there was 8-0 Rams… The Raiders were able to move the ball, but fumbles seemed to be a problem as they had turnovers in each of the quarters that hurt them… The defense gave up some big plays including some long yardage scoring.
Laurens Academy
- Crusaders Travel to Newberry … The Crusaders will head down to Newberry Academy tonight for a 7:30 pm game with the rival Eagles… The Crusaders are coming off the season opening 56-20 win against the Cambridge Academy Cougars in Greenwood last Friday night while this is the season opener for the Eagles…. Last year the Eagles went 2-9 on the season and 0-6 in region play… They struggled during the first part of the season where the Crusaders took a 58-0 in early September at their place but by October, they had improved an only loss to the Crusaders 32-20 at Todd Kirk Field… Coach Doolittle expects them to have one of the best teams they have had in years so this could be tough one…Good Luck to the Crusaders!
Laurens County Touchdown Club
- Yesterday at noon the Laurens County T
ouchdown Club met for the first time this season at The Ridge on Exchange Drive…
Garret Murphy was honored for being the clubs first Player of the Week for his role in the Crusaders 56-20 win over Cambridge Academy last Friday night… Mr. Tommy Stribble one of our local area multi-sport officials was also honored as he will be officiating his 700th contest tonight at the Woodruff vs. Clinton football game… I have
personally have had the privilege of officiating a few of those 699 contest with him and will tell you will not find a better official anywhere and he an even better man… He starts is 51st year officiating tonight’s Woodruff vs. Clinton game… After that Coach Steve Englehart of PC briefly spoke and the three local high school coaches too center stage… Check back early next week for a video of the meeting.
High School Football Scores, Schedules and Standings
- Thanks to scfootballstats.com you can now see last weekend’s scores for all games by classification on Saturday or Sunday and possibly Monday… After that you will see the weeks schedule by classification… You can also see the standings in each region by classification… To see this information, click here.
Broadcast Notes… We plan on brining you the following contest here on Real Radio WLBG… If it is a varsity football game we will start our broadcast about 6:20 pm with the Friday Night Insiders… Remember all sports broadcast are streamed live on the internet at www.wlbg.com.
- Friday, August 23rd… Varsity football Hillcrest at Laurens, 7:30
- Thursday, August 29th… JV football Clinton at Laurens, 6:30
- Friday, August 30th… Varsity football Laurens at Clinton, &:30
Local Sports Schedules: All schedules subject to change right up to game time.
- School District 55: To see the sports schedule for this week at LDHS, click here.
- School District 56: To see the sports schedule for this week at CHS and CMS, click here
- Laurens Academy: Click on each of the following to see their schedule: Varsity Football, Middle Scholl Football and Varsity /MS Volleyball. .
- Thornwell: To see the Thornwell varsity volleyball schedule and results click here
- PC Sports Calendar… To see the PC athletics sports calendar, click here.
Olympics
- Sports Added to 2028 Summer Olympics… With the Paris Summer Olympics not too far back in the rear view mirror, I wonder how many of you know that the Summer 2028 will be held in Los Angeles July 14 – July 30, 2028… They will be adding back some sports that were left out this year and adding a new one or two… Cricket will be back for the first time since the 1900 Olympics in Paris… Lacrosse is back for the first time since 1948… Baseball and softball which were left out this year after several years of being “in”…Squash and flag football will be making in in for the first time… For more on this click here.
College Sports: For any game mentioned below, click on the score for more details if available.
College Football
- College Football Playoff Information…. Recently there was an article that was on USA Today and the Greenville News about how teams for the expanded college playoffs for FBS teams will be chosen… Playoff ranking dates were also announced and they will start on Tuesday Nov. 5th… The people who are on the selection committee are also listed in that article… The college football playoff dates and game locations are also listed with the National Championship being played on Monday, January 20, 2025 in Atlanta… To read that article click here… By the way, Good Lord willing, that will be my birthday… I’ll gladly accept a ticket to the game if anyone wants to give me one as birthday present!
Pro Sports: For more information on the game(s) below, click on the scores at the start of the section.
- Braves 2 – Phillies 2… Last night down in Atlanta in game 3 of a 3-game series with the division leading Phillies, the Braves took a 3-2 win to win the series 2 game to 1… They did it by simply outhitting thePhillies10-3 with Adam Duvall (11) having the games only homerun a solo shot in the 6th inning that proved to be the winning runs… Spencer Schwellenbach picked up the win going 6⅔ strong innings giving up 2 earned runs on 3 hits while striking out 9 and walking just 1… The Braves start a 3-game series with the Washington Nationals tonight in Atlanta.
- Austin Riley Out Rest of Regular Season… Well an injury has struck the Braves again this season where the Braves lineup is almost unrecognizable due to previous injuries… Sunday against the Angels Austin Riley was hit by a pitch on his right hand fracturing bones in it thus he will be out for 6-8 weeks…. For more on this and a recap of other Braves injuries this season click here.
- Braves Sign Gio Urshela… In order to plug the hole left in the Braves lineup by Riley’s injury the Braves signed Gio Urshela to a contract Tuesday morning after being released by the Detroit Tigers on Sunday… He has been in the big leagues since 2015 and has played on 6 different teams… For more on this story click here.
- Season Schedule… If you would like to see the Braves season schedule, click here… It should also show where the game will be televised if it is televised. .
- Other Scores… If you would like to see the scores of other MLB games click here.
- Standings… To see the MLB Standings click here… Once you get there you will see the standing by league (American or National) and also by division.
- Drive 6 – Emperors 4… There is also good news for the casual Greenville Drive fans out there as they took a 6-4 win over the Rome Emperors last night at Flour Field… They trailed 4-0 3oing into the bottom of the 5th inning where they scored 2 runs and then proceeded to come all the way back taking the 6-4 win. Click on the score at the beginning of this section for more details.
- Standings… To see the full standings for the SAL click here.
- Season Schedule… To see the Drives season schedule, click here… Once you are there you can go back to look at scores of past games and also see what lies ahead for the Drive.
NASCAR
- Reddick Wins in Two Overtimes Cup Series Race at Michigan… Monday in the rain delayed FireKeepers 400 at the Michigan International Speedway, Tyler Reddick picked up his second win of the season… They had to go run two overtimes to determine the winner with Reddick taking a slim .168 second win William Byron… For more information as to who was leading at the suspension of the race click here.
- Standings … With the win, Tyler Redick (814) moves up a notch to the top spot in the Cup Series Driver Standings while Case Elliot (804) moves up a spot to #2. Denny Hamlin (786) moves up to #3 and last week’s leader Kyle Larson (782) drops to 4th… Ryan Blaney (732) continues to hold down the #5 spot… Click here if you would like to see the entire driver standings and once at the NASCAR site you can also click on links to see the standings in Xfinity and Truck Series using tabs in the upper right corner of the posting.
- Schedule This Week… NASCAR is splitting up where they race this weekend… The Xfinity Series will race Friday night at 7:30 pm down in Daytona and the Cu Series Race will be in Daytona also on Saturday night at 7:30… The Truck series will be racing Sunday at 4:00 pm in Milwaukee… Click here to see the full schedule for Daytona and Milwaukee including practices and qualifying.
- NASCAR on TV this Week… NASCAR has several things being televised this week including race practices and qualifying, the race itself and assorted other things… To see the TV schedule for each day of the week click here.
This & That:
Fall Baseball at City of Laurens Parks and Recreation… Registration is now open through August 23rd at the City of Laurens Parks and Recreation for Fall Baseball… There will be three age groupings: 5-7 coaches’ pitch, 7-9 kids’ pitch and 9-11 kids pitch… The cost for each registrant is $50… You can register can the City of Laurens Parks and Recreation offices at The Ridge on Exchange Drive in Laurens during their normal business hours… If you have any questions call them at 864-681-7275… Batter Up!
If you have any comments, suggestions, or want to report scores, please contact me via email at: sports@wlbg.com or text me at 864-981-3470.