By MONTE DUTTON

In baseball, and most sports, the last cut is the deepest.

On Friday night, at Ed Prescott Field, it was administered by the Catawba Ridge Copperheads, so perhaps it was a strike, but it was 4-2 and advanced the Fort Mill school to the Class 4A state finals. Laurens’ aspirations for its first title since 1991 ended, but it wasn’t so bad.

Some tears were shed, but Laurens (18-11-1) has a quality nucleus coming back and an unbeaten junior varsity coming up.

This year the Raiders took another step. They reached the Upstate’s final four a year ago, and this time they reached the final two.

Head coach Tori Patterson has a baseball program that keeps hope alive.

“That’s what I told them,” he said after the final out. “That senior class goes down as one of the best ever here. You know, we won a league championship (2021) came up short in the playoffs, we get to the upper state (four-team bracket in ’22), get to upper state (two-team bracket) this year.

“We continue to make strides, and we’ve got a lot of our team coming back for two more years. We feel comfortable about getting back here next year. I think we’ll be back here for sure.”

Only Catawba Ridge (23-6) stood between Laurens and the state finals, but the Copperheads took two straight, 4-0 and 4-2.

“I can guarantee you, we gave them a game,” Patterson said after the latter.

Laurens led after two innings. The Copperheads struck first on Sam Schwamb’s two-out, RBI single, but the Raiders retaliated with a run-producing double by catcher Bennett Edwards and a controversial play in which Catawba Ridge catcher Schwamb failed to corral a third strike and then overthrew first base, attempting to retire Owen Pridgen. Ben Willis scored to put Laurens up, 2-1. Catawba Ridge coaches protested that Pridgen had fouled the ball in the dirt en route to the backstop.

Neither Laurens run was earned, but the Snakes didn’t rattle again. (It’s true that Copperheads don’t rattle, but work with me here.)

Jake McCoy gave up only Edwards’ double and four walks in five innings, striking out nine of the 22 batters he faced. Caden Glauber picked up his second save in as many tries against the Raiders.

Josh Hughes look the loss for Laurens, allowing eight hits in 5-2/3 innings. Jackson Martin pitched a third of an inning and Grayson Ledford finished up. Only two of the four runs charged Hughes were earned.

Owen Noonan, who had reached on an error, tied the game on Schwamb’s single to center in the third inning, and Catawba Ridge took the lead on Ethan Solnick’s double in the fourth, scoring Peyton Dhein. The final run crossed in the sixth on Ben Wilson’s single.

The Raiders only had one hit. In the fifth, sixth and seventh innings, they put only two runners on base, and both walked to get there.

By the final out, a liner by center fielder Zay Pulley to Glauber, who managed to avoid the ball with his head and catch it with his glove, the season’s end was a bit of a foregone conclusion.

St. Patrick would have struggled running the Snakes out of LDHS, let alone Ireland.