Sports Report for Thursday, 1-9-2025

Local Notes

Laurens County Touchdown Club  

  • 2024 Awards Banquet
    • Last night the The Ridge, the Laurens County Touchdown Club held its annual Awards Banquet… There were several speakers at the meeting and the Keynote Speaker was Mr. Brian Mance… He is a former Clemson football player and he has coached at various levels until some neurological illness caused him to suddenly be paralyzed from the neck down… His story was an inspiration and very motivational… If you would like to read more about him and his struggle to overcome physical problems, click here.

    • After he spoke several players were honored as being Players of The Week since the club’s last meeting…. Then it was time for the club to honor the three high schools and one college player who had won the Lakelands FCA Character Awards… In alphabetical order they are Nathan Bell from Laurens Academy, Noah Garrett of Clinton HS, Noah Roberts of LDHS and Warner Bush of Presbyterian College.

    • The next order of business was to honor the All-County Team… The members of that team had been announced earlier and if you want to see the complete list of players who made the team, their position and school, click here.
    • The final item on the agenda was to name the Coach of the Year and Player of the Year… Coach Corey Fountain of Clinton HS was named the Coach of the Year as he guided the Red Devils to a Class AA State Championship this past season… For the first time in the club’s history, two players were named as Co-Players of the Year… The Co-Players of the Year are Garrett Murphy of Laurens Academy and Tushawan Richardson of Clinton HS… Both had stats some impressive it was hard for the club to single out one of them.

    • A video was shot of the meeting that is about an hour and 30 minutes long… At the time of this posting, it was still being processed and uploaded to YouTube… When it becomes available, you will be able to click here to view it…Should be noon today… It takes a while to edit and process a video that long… After that is finished, I will create a slideshow of photos taken last night at the meeting and it will be available later in the day by clicking here.
    • Congratulations to Coach Fountain, Garrett Murphy, Tushawan Richardson and all the other players honored last night!

Clinton HS

  • Up Next… The Red Devils basketball teams will be traveling to Fairfield Central this Friday night (1-10-25) as they open region play weather permitting.

Laurens HS

  • Varsity Basketball
    • Up Next… The Raider varsity basketball teams will be traveling to Wren HS Friday night weather permitting.

Laurens Academy

  • Crusaders on the Road…  The Crusaders traveled to King Academy last Tuesday night to take on the Knights n non-region games.
    • Girls: Crusaders 48 – Knights 14… In varsity girls’ action, the Lady Crusaders outscored the Knights 15-2 in the first quarter and then rolled on to a 48-14win… The Crusader defense held the Knight to just 2 points in 2 of the quarters… Braylee Burke continues to be a team leader as she scored a game-high 16 points last night and Sadie Bruyere also scored in double-digits with 10 points… Mackenzie Runyans 7, Brooklyn Senn 3 and rounding out the Crusader scoring Caroline Robinson, Braydyn Dorn, Abby Howard, Brooke Abercrombie, Caroline Mullinax, and Madisyn Graham all finished with 2 points… The team is now 8-3 overall… MS Girls… The news is not as good where the Middle school girls are concerned as they fell to the Knights by a score of 37-11.
    • Boys: Crusaders 43 – King ??? … Now due to a technical problem I cannot tell you the score of the boys’ game… I do know that the Crusaders scored 43 points with Brayden Burke scoring 17 points but I DO NOT know how many points the Knights scored…. Less than 43 I hope… I’ll try to get the needed information on the Knights and update this tomorrow.
    • Up Next… The master schedule for Laurens Academy shows that all their teams will be hosting Easley Homeschool tomorrow starting at 4:00 pm with middle school girls action weather permitting

Thornwell

  • Basketball
    • Up Next… According to the schedule on MaxPreps, the Saints will travel to McCormick this Friday (1-10-25) for more region games weather permitting.

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 hereNOTE…Dixie and Thornwell do NOT have middle school girls teams this season so the 5:00 pm start will be for the boys’ game… According to the master schedule the games for tonight should be:

  • Hickory Tavern at Gray Court-Owings
  • Laurens Middle at Sanders
  • Thornwell at Dixie
  • Dixie at Ware Shoals

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.

 

  • Four Teams Left in College Playoffs… College Football Playoffs are now to just 4 teams… They are #4 Penn State, #5 Notre Dame, #3 Texas and #6 Ohio State… Later this week that will be cut to 2 teams remaining… The Football Semifinal games are as follows: (click on each matchup for more information about each game.)
  • Thursday, Jan. 9: College Football Playoff Semifinal Game (Orange Bowl), 7:30 p.m. | ESPN, No. 4 Penn State vs. No. 5 Notre Dame, Hard Rock Stadium, Miami Gardens, Florida
  • Friday, Jan. 10: College Football Playoff Semifinal Game (Cotton Bowl), No. 3 Texas vs. No. 6 Ohio State, 7:30 p.m. | ESPN, AT&T Stadium, Arlington, Texas

 

  • 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.
  • 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. 20th 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.

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 PollThe latest AP Top 25 Poll (1-6-25) had no changes in the top 5… Tennessee is still #1 followed by Auburn, Iowa State, Duke and Alabama … There were some changes in spots 6-10 as Kentucky (10) is now #6 followed by Marquette (8), Florida (6), UConn (11) and Texas A&M (13)…To see the remainder of the top 25 click here.
  • DI ScoresTo 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 ConferenceTo 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.

 

 Women

  • DI AP Poll The latest AP Top 25 Poll (1-6-25) also had no changes in the top 5…UCLA is still #1 followed by South Carolina, Notre Dame, UConn and LSU (4)… LSU checked in at #6 followed by UConn, Maryland, Ohio State (10) and Oklahoma (9)… To see the remainder of the top 25 click here.
  • DI ScoresTo 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 ConferenceTo 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 SportsFor 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:

 

 

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.