Sports Report for Wednesday, 12-18-2024

Local Notes

Clinton HS

Basketball… The Red Devil varsity teams hosted the Emerald Vikings last night in a doubleheader of basketball action.

Girls: Clinton 38 – Emerald 20… The Red Devil and Vikings girls’ basketball teams had a problem getting their offense going last night as the score was tied 8-8 at the half… The Red Devils woke up in the second half and scored 15 points in each of the last two quarters while the Vikings still remained half asleep as the Red Devils pulled away to take a 38-20 win… The only Red Devil to score in double-digits was Kemaria Shelton who finished with 10 points… McKenzie Clark was close behind with 9 points and Emma Patterson finished with 6…. Mylayja Thompson and Bryanna Belton both finished with 5 points and Jakia Burton finished with 3 points… The Red Devils are 5-1 on the young season.
Boys: Clinton 49 – Emerald 43… In boys’ action, the news is also good as the Red Devils won 49-43… I don’t have any scoring details on the game but Coach Glenn is supposed to send me some today and if he does I will share them with you tomorrow.
Up Next… The Red Devil MaxPreps schedule shows that the varsity teams will be traveling to Newberry tonight to take on the Bulldogs… Go Big Red!

Jaydon Glenn TD Club Player of the Week

Monday it was announced that Clinton’s junior defensive end Jaydon Glenn was chosen as the Laurens County Touchdown Club’s final Player of the Week for this season because of his performance in the Red Devils 35-6 win over the Barnwell Warhorses in the Class AA State Championship game down in Orangeburg last Thursday… He led the defensive team in points as he finished the game with 4 tackles, 2 tackles for a loss, 4 quarterback pressures and 2 sacks of the Warhorse quarterback… The Red Devil defense held the powerful Warhorses scoreless except for 1 kickoff return for a TD.
About Jaydon Coach Fountain commented “Jaydon has been an unselfish player all year. During Region play he was moved to defensive end and never looked back. He has worked tremendously hard and been a great asset on the defensive line throughout Region play and the playoffs. His pressure on the quarterback during the State Championship kept one of their best players uncomfortable all game. I’m proud of Jaydon and look forward to seeing his continued success.”
The Laurens County Touchdown Club will honor Glenn on January 8th at the Touchdown Club Annual Banquet. The Awards Banquet will be at 6 pm at The Ridge in Laurens… Player of the Week awards is presented by Farm Bureau Insurance of Laurens County in 2024.

Laurens HS

Basketball
- The Raider varsity basketball teams traveled to Greenwood Tuesday night for a double-header of girls’ and boys’ basketball against the Eagles.
  - Updated: Boys: Laurens 59 – Greenwood 54… The boys’ team took a close 59-54 win over the Eagles… The two teams were tied 14-14 at the end of the first quarter and then the Raiders had a 24-23 lead at the half and continued to outscore the Eagles by 4 points in the second half to secure the win…The Raiders had two players scoring in double-digits as TyJ Jones finished with a game high 24 points and DJ Martin had 15 points…. Q. Watts had 8 points, Will Thompson 6, Zee Simpson 4 and Damyyo Watts 2…The Raiders improve to 5-3 on the young season.
  - Updated: Girls: Greenwood 53 – Laurens 29… The news is not as good where the girls are concerned as they had trouble getting the offense going last night as the Eagles took a 53-29 win…. The Eagles outscored the Raiders 16-4 in the first quarter and held the Raiders to single-digits in every quarter but the last where the Raiders scored 14 points but the Eagles scored 17 in the quarter… Using the MaxPreps score tracker done by Greenwood, it looks like Nyri Allen led the Raiders with 11 points and Zoe Yong had 7… The Raiders fall to 4-4 on the young season.
- Up Next… Some of the Raider teams will be hosting the White Knoll Timberwolves tonight… If I read the schedule correctly, the JV girls will play at 5:00 pm, freshman boys at 6:15 and the varsity girls after that.

Thornwell

Basketball… The schedule I have shows that the Saints basketball teams will be traveling over to Abbeville tonight to take on the Panthers in region action… Girls will start at 6:00pm with boys to follow about 7L30… Go Big Dogs!

Middle School Basketball… All games start at 5:00 pm unless otherwise noted with girls’ game first followed by boys’ game… Note: coaches very often change schedule without telling me… To see the season master schedule click here… NOTE…Dixie and Thornwell do NOT have middle school girls teams this season so the 5:00 pm start will be for the boys’ game

Laurens County Touchdown Club

If you would like to see information about the Laurens County Touchdown Club such as how to join, meeting dates, sponsors and guest speakers click here.… The Club’s next meeting which is the Annual Awards Banquet will be on Wednesday, January 8^th at The Ridge… The featured speaker for the January 8th Annual Awards Banquet will be former Clemson football great Brian Mance… Mance was named the 2023 South Carolina Football Hall of Fame “Humanitarian of the Year…”The TD Club will recognize its All-County team selection as well as Coach of the Year, Player of the Year and the Lakeland’s Fellowship of Christian Athletes Character award winners from each High School as well as Presbyterian College.
The Laurens County Touchdown Club last meeting was on Thursday, 11-21-24. In addition to honoring the three latest Players of the Week and hearing from the local high school and college coaches, it was the annual Clemson-Carolina Meeting. The guest speakers were Don Munson the Voice of the Clemson Tigers and Chet Tucker Sideline Reporter for the Gamecocks. Click here to see a video of that meeting followed by a few pictures taken at the meeting. .

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: Basketball…. Also you can click on the following to see their schedule on MaxPreps: Varsity Girls and Varsity Boys.… You can also click here to see the master basketball schedule for the Crusade teams. .
Thornwell: To see the Thornwell varsity basketball schedules and results click on one of the following: Varsity Girls, Boys… Also Master Schedule that includes middle school games click here.
PC Sports Calendar… To see the PC athletics sports calendar, click here.

College Sports: For any game mentioned below, click on the score for more details if available.

College Football… In the polls the number in parenthesis (?) indicates their rank in the last poll if it is different from the present one.

College Football Playoff Rankings….The final College Football Rankings came out on 12-11-24 and these are the rankings that will be used to seed the 12 teams that make the FBS Playoffs at the end of the year… They follow the AP Poll closely but not exactly… The first 5 teams in order are Oregon, Georgia (5), Texas (2), Penn State (3) and Notre Dame (4)… Spots 6 – 10 are held by Ohio State, Tennessee, Indiana (9), Boise State (10) and SMU (8)… Spots 11 and 15 are occupied by Alabama (11), Arizona State (15), Miami (12), Ole Miss (13) and South Carolina (14)… Clemson moved up t0 #16 from #17… To see the list of the entire top 25 in the in the Playoff Rankings click here… NOTE: Now due to certain rules for automatic placements into the playoffs, Clemson did make it into the playoffs but South Carolina did not (see below)… Other teams that did not make the playoffs ranked in the top 15 are Alabama, Miami and Ole Miss

2024-25 College Football Playoff Bracket… The four teams that will get a bye in the first round of the college football playoffs due to the fact they are the 4 highest rankings of the five major football conferences that won their college conference are Oregon, Georgia, Boise State and Arizona State… To see the entire playoff bracket click here… Clemson will open play on Saturday, Dec. 21^st at Texas taking on the Longhorns.

2024-25 Entire College Football Bowl Schedule & Information… After the selection Committee filled out the College Playoff Brackets other teams were quickly chosen for the myriad of bowl games that are going to be held between now and the National Championship game on Monday, Jan. 20^th next year… If you click here, you will go to a posting on the NCAA website where the list of bowls is posted along with when they will be held, times, TV availability and after they are over the final score… The bowls will start this Saturday (12-14-24) with South Carolina State taking on Jackson State in the Celebration Bowl in Atlanta (noon on ABC)… Other bowls in South Carolina or involving team from South Carolina include:
- Myrtle Beach Bowl, Monday, 12-23, Costal Carolina vs. UTSA, 2:30 pm on ESPN
- Citrus Bowl, Tuesday, 12-31, #15 South Carolina vs. #20 Illinois in Orlando, 3:00 pm on ABC

FBS Football Scores… If you would like to see the scores for FBS schools this past week click here… Once you get there you can filter and sort several different ways and you can also click on the next week to see the FBS schedule..

FCS Playoffs… The FCS playoffs are underway and have been since Dec.7^th… There are no teams from South Carolina involved and the closest team to our area is Mercer… To see the bracket and scores as the games are finished, click here.

College Basketball… In the polls the number in parenthesis (?) indicates their rank in the last poll if it is different from the present one… If there is a score given or game(s) click on it to see details on the game(s).

Men

DI AP Poll… The latest AP Top 25 Poll (12-16-24) one change in the top 5… Tennessee is still #1 followed by Auburn, Iowa State then Kentucky moves up a spot to #4 while Duke drops a spot to #5… Clemson dropped from #16 to #25… To see the remainder of the top 25 click here.
DI Scores… To see the scores foe last night and also for the previous couple of days click here… You can also look ahead to the next few days to see who will be playing.
Standings by Conference… To see the conference standings for each of the DI conferences, click here… It’s a long list so if you want to see say the SEC standings, you have to scroll down a good bit.

Men: South Carolina 91 – Clemson 88 in OT… In case you missed it last night (Tuesday, 12-17-24) South Carolina took a 91-88 win over Clemson at the Colonial Life Center… To see the box score and play-by play on the game click here… For the Clemson “take” of the game click here… It was a good game that could have went either way.

Women

DI AP Poll… The latest AP Top 25 Poll (12-16-24) had a couple of changes in the top 5…UCLA is still #1but South Carolina moved from #3 to #2… The rest of the top 5 are Notre Dame (8), UConn (2) and LSU (4)…To see the remainder of the top 25 click here.
DI Scores… To see the scores foe last night and also for the previous couple of days click here… You can also look ahead to the next few days to see who will be playing.
Standings by Conference… To see the conference standings for each of the DI conferences, click here… It’s a long list so if you want to see say the SEC standings, you have to scroll down a good bit.

Pro Sports: For more information on the game(s) below, click on the scores at the start of the section.

NFL

Schedules and Scores… For you diehard pro football fans out there if you want to check scores or schedules in the NFL click here… Once you go to this posting on the NFL site you can filter by the week you are interested in.
Standings… If you are also curious about the NFL standings, click here,

This & That:

WLBG will be carrying the Touchstone Energy Bowl this Saturday (12-21-24) starting with pregame activities at noon… The kickoff is scheduled for shortly after noon… At the half time of the game, they will be announcing Mr. Football 2024… As a reminder the Red Devils Cal Pitts will be one of the participants on the North Squad.

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.