Thursday, 5-1-25
Please see an important note and question about the future of this report in the This and That Section at the bottom of this report.
Local Notes
Clinton HS
- Tennis: Clinton 6 – Landrum 0… Boy did I make a mistake… Yesterday I had in my sports report the tennis team would start playoff action yesterday when in actuality they started on Tuesday with a 6-0 win over the Landrum Cardinals at home on the at CMS courts… Nathan Meade. Matthew King, Jacob King, Cooper Stinson and Jake Meyerholtz all took convincing wins in singles action… The #2 doubles team composed of Malakye Brewer and Ethan Wargo also handily defeated their opponents on the courts… For more details on this match click here… The Red Devils will be back in action today (5-1-25) hosting St Joseph’s which defeated Broome 6-0 on Tuesday… Start time is 5:00 pm.… To see that tournament bracket click here… Good luck or Go Big Red!
- Up Next in Baseball… According to information I had, the Red Devil baseball team was scheduled to host the Eau Claire Shamrocks yesterday and if they did, I cannot find any result on those games… If I get them later I will pass them on to you….According to their schedule on MaxPreps the Red Devils will be closing out their regular season tonight hosting the Saluda Tigers at 6:00 pm
- Up Next in Softball… According to information I had, the Red Devil softball team was scheduled to host the Eau Claire Shamrocks yesterday and if they did, I cannot find any result on those games… If I get them later I will pass them on to you….According to their schedule on MaxPreps the Red Devils will be closing out their regular season tonight hosting the Saluda Tigers at 5:30 pm
Laurens
- Tennis Team Finishes First in Region…Last week the Raider bots tennis team made history by finishing first in the region for the first time in program history… The Raiders finished the season 10-0 overall and 9-0 in region play… The team is led by Coach Lynne Todd… Team members include John Parker, Price Turner, Bates Turner, Dylan Brink, Ryland Edwards who all play singles matches… The rest of the team includes Zaine Kellett, Carson Jenkins, Judah Norton, Weston Coggins, Landon Garett, Gibson Partee, Carson Hawkins and Will Brink… Coach Todd is assisted by former Raider and Limestone player Maya Ramirez who is a certified USTA instructor…. Congratulations to the team!
- Tennis: Laurens 5 – Pickens 0… Once again I made a mistake and said that the Raider boys’ tennis team would start their participation in the Class 4A Tennis Tournament yesterday when they actually started it on Tuesday… Well that admission made, good news for Raider Fans as they took a 5-0 win over Pickens on Tuesday… The only matches that were played were singles matches and the Raiders won them by one-sided scores… John Parker, Price Turner, Bates Turner, Dylan Brink and Ryland Edwards all defeated their opponents.
- UP Next… The team now takes on region foe Fountain in at home today (5-1) in second round action… The start time is shortly after 4:30… Go Raiders… To see the bracket for the Class 4A Tennis Tournament click here…Please come out and cheer on the Raiders!
- Baseball: Laurens 8 – Greenwood 6… I had two different schedules for the Laurens-Greenwood baseball game yesterday one showing the Raiders playing at home and the other showing them at Greenwood…. On yesterday’s sports report I went with the home game when in fact they did travel to Greenwood last night… What really matters is that the Raiders took an 8-6 win at Greenwood over the Eagles last night… The Raiders jumped out to an early 4-0 lead scoring 4 runs in the 1st inning… The first of those runs was scored on a solo homer by Zay Pulley… The Eagles tied the game scoring 2 runs in the 2nd and 3rd innings… The Raiders scored 2 runs in the 5th and 6th innings and then held on as the Eagles scored their final 2 runs in the 6th inning… The Raiders outhit the Eagles 11-5 and both teams had a few miscues that aided the other team in scoring… Coleman Coker went 3 for 4 for the Raiders and scored 2 runs… Jireh Brown and Avery Madden both had 2 hits or the driving in runs and each of them had a double among their hits… To see the box score of the game click here and to see the scorecard to see how the runs were scored click here.
- Up Next in Baseball… The Raiders were scheduled to close out their regular season at home tonight hosting the Hillcrest Rams… However, Hillcrest has decided bit to play that game…The JV team will still play tonight at 5:30.
- Softball: Raiders 26 – JL Mann 2 (4)… The Raider softball team hosted the JL Mann Patriots last night in their last game of the regular season… The Raiders pretty much had their way with the Patriots as they cruised to a 26-2 win in 4 innings… The Raiders outhit the Patriots 14-3 but as you might expect looking at the score the Patriots had a few errors and a couple of wild pitches and hit batters that aided the Raider scoring… Carly Edwards led the Raider offense going 4 for 5 with a double, a triple and drove in 7 runs… Summer Nations went 3 for 4and also picked up the win pitching all but the last inning… Three other Raiders had 2 hits each and one of those three was Addison Trevino who had a homer and a double driving in 3 runs… To see the box score of the game click here and to see the scorecard to see how the runs were scored click here.
- Up Next in Softball… The Raiders have now finished their regular season and will make the playoffs and I’ll have more about that tomorrow or Monday
- Eight Sign at LDHS… Yesterday afternoon in the main gym at LDHS, 8 student-athletes signed letter of intent to continue their education and athletic careers at various institutions of higher learning… Please check back tomorrow for more details on this.
Laurens Academy
- Softball: Tuesday: Greenwood Christian 20 – Crusaders 19… The Crusader softball team hosted the Greenwood Christian Hawks Tuesday night and they fell 20-19 to the Hawks as the Hawks scored 3 runs in the top of the 7th inning and then held the Crusaders scoreless in the bottom of the inning to take a come-from-behind 20-19 win over the Crusaders…The Hawks had taken an early lead but the Crusader scored 6 runs in the 6th inning to take the lead only to have the Hawks get the winning runs in the 7th inning… Sophia Harvey went 5 for 6 and drove in 5 runs to lead the Crusader offense… Several other players had multiple hits for the Crusader and if you want to see more information on this game click here to go the games box score on GameChanger.
- Up Next… According to their schedule on MaxPreps, the Crusaders will be hosting the Northside Christian Crusaders out of Lexington at 5:30 tonight and it will be Senior Night.
Thornwell
- Baseball: American Leadership Academy 14 – Saints 0… The Saints baseball team traveled down to the Lexington area yesterday to take on the Patriots of American Leadership Academy… The Saints offense was almost nonexistent as they managed only one hit by Griffen Raines while the Patriots had nine hits and took advantage of 3 Saint errors to take a 14-0 win over the Saints… To see the box score of the game click here and to see the scorecard to see how the runs were scored click here.
- Baseball up Next in Baseball… Their schedule on MaxPreps show the Saints will be traveling to Greenville tomorrow to take on the Southside HS Tigers at 6:00 pm
- Up Next in Softball … Looking at the Saints schedule on MaxPreps it looks like they do not have any games left on their regular schedule… I do believe they have made the playoffs and I will update you on that later in the week or Monday.
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 on the LA website: Softball and Baseball … To see the MaxPreps schedule and results for the teams click on one of the following you are interested in: Softball…. Baseball
- Thornwell: To see the Thornwell schedules and results click on their MaxPreps pages click on one of the following you are interested in:: Baseball… Softball
- 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 Polls… In the polls below 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 for game(s) click on it to see details on the game(s).
Baseball
- DIBaseball.com Top 25… In the latest (4-27-25) DI Baseball.com Top 25 poll, the top 5 spots changes… Texas is still #1 (2) followed by LSU (7), Clemson (2), North Carolina (8) and Florida State (4)… Spots 6-10 are occupied by Oregon (13), Oregon State (3), UC Irvine (12) Georgia (10) and Auburn (11)… Coastal Carolina moved up from #21 to #19… To see the entire top 25 in this poll click here.
Softball
- ESPN/USA Softball Poll… In the latest (4-28-25) ESPN/USA Softball Top 25, the top 5 had a little change compared to last week as Oklahoma (4) moved into the #1 spot followed by Tennessee (1), Oregon (5), Texas A&M (2) and Texas (3)… Spots 6-10 are occupied by Arkansas (9), Florida (6), UCLA, Florida State (7) and LSU … South Carolina moved down a spot to #12 and Clemson checked in at #16 this week up from #19… To see the entirety of this poll click here.
Pro Sports: For more information on the game(s) below, click on the scores at the start of the section.
NASCAR
- Austin Cindric Picks Up First Win of the Season… Austin Cindric was just barely able to get the nose of his car in front of Ryan Preece Sunday in the Cup Series race at Talladega winning by just 0.022 seconds… For more information on this race click here and it will carry you to the NASCAR site where they recap the race and have a link to the order of finish for each driver.
- Driver Standings… After this race, the top 5 drivers in the Cup Series Standings are now William Byron, Kyle Larson, Denny Hamlin, Chase Elliott and Christopher Bell … If you click here you will go the NASCAR posting that has the Cups Series standings from top to bottom… Once you get there you can click on tabs at the top of the page to see the driver standings in the Xfinity and Craftsman Truck Series.
- Weekend Schedule… NASCAR action moves to the Texas Motor Speedway this week…To see the NASCAR schedule for this weekend, click here.
- Master Schedule… If you click here it will carry you to the NASCAR website where the season schedule is posted and you can look at the Cup Series. Xfinity Series or the Craftsman Truck Series by clicking on their icon at the top of the list… In addition to the date and location, it will also give you race times and TV viewing options.
Braves…. Click on the score to go to the Braves website for a recap of the game.
- Rockies 2 – Braves 1… This was the third game of a 3-game series in Colorado with the Braves winning the series 2-1… The Braves are off tonight and return to Atlanta to start a series with the Dodgers tomorrow night.
- Regular Season Schedule… To see the Braves regular season schedule click here… Once you get there you can go backwards to see completed games in previous month(s) or ahead for future dates.
- Scores… To see the MLB scores by date and see the schedule for future days, click here.
- Standings… To see the standings for all the MLB teams by divisions, click here.
Greenville Drive… Click on the scores below at the start of the section for more details on the game(s).
- Tourist 4 – Drive 3… In the second game of a 6-game series with the Ashville Tourist in Greenville last night, the Tourist took a 4-3 win… Click on the score at the start for details.
- Schedule… To see the Drive schedule click here.
- Standings… If you would like to see the standings in the South Atlantic League, click here to go to the website where that is available… Once you get there, there are drop-down menus and filters so that you can see the standing in other leagues and levels of minor league baseball.
This & That:
As most of you know by now, WLBG will be signed off the air about 3:15 pm on Monday, 3-31-2025.
That was a bittersweet moment for me as I have strived to bring you local sports to the best of my ability and throw in some college and pro sports also.
As I understand it, the WLBG website will NOT be taken down immediately.
If that is the case I may still be able to continue to post these sports reports on the website for some time to come if there if you the Laurens County sports fans want me to but don’t look for the sports report until 8:00 am weekdays or perhaps a little later (I’ll be sleeping later and not getting up at 3:00 am like I have been doing).
Obviously I will not be getting paid to do it but I will try to continue to the end of the high school sports this season if the demand is there. This will also help me to decide if in the future I might try to develop my own website if I can obtain the sponsorship to bring you what you want.
If you don’t mind, please email me at sports@wlbg.com and let me know you would like to see it continue.
That is the only way I have to judge this.
If you have not already done so, please continue to let me know you read the sports reports.
If I don’t seem to generate much interest in this that is fine I just won’t do it.
In any event I have enjoyed (for the most part) my almost 15 years doing this and meeting some great coaches, players, administrators and you the fans.
Take care and you will still be able to catch me at some athletic contest.
Go Red Devils, Raiders, Crusaders and Saints!
If you have any comments, suggestions, or want to report scores, please contact me via email at: sports@wlbg.com .