By MONTE DUTTON

This is the way to win a state championship.

Bring out the honored heroes of the past. It’s been 62 years since the baseball team won the state. Establish the link because, in a place like this, the team does not just represent the school; it represents the whole area, not just Clinton but Joanna, Cross Hill, Mountville and far-flung consulates where ex-Red Devils reside.

Kinard Littleton played everything splendidly and baseball best. He’s wearing a Yankees cap, and I wonder if it’s because he roomed with Lou Piniella in Triple-A.

Billy Glenn has two grandsons, Carson and Jaydon, who are about to be state champions, too. Carson is going to be the winning pitcher.

It’s a mild night. The crowd is milling about because for many, there’s no place to sit. The place barely affords enough room for kids to throw balls off the back of the dugout, and this is because the back of the dugout denies vision of the game to others behind it, and that’s not why kids are there.

The blue-clad Hanahanans are a bit like a few tomcats trapped in a kennel, but to my knowledge, derived from the wandering needs of my camera, all is relatively civil. I think it’s the reverence, the sense of history and the presence of the baseball elders, watching, nodding their approval. It’s also the tension of a fine game, marred by only one error, that, naturally, decides it.

Fans should always remember that the other team is trying, too. The Hawks balk at the inevitability even while succumbing to it. They are feisty and grumpy, and who wouldn’t be when cast in such an environment? It seems as if they throw their arms up and roll their eyes and shake their fists at every strike at which they don’t swing.

As a general rule, umpires don’t like that.

The Red Devils look as if they are being cool, calm and grimly determined because they want to lose their minds and threaten their limbs as soon as this championship is won.

On the ground ball that ends it, second baseman Bryce Young cracks a smile as he throws to first.

Then bodies fly recklessly into the breach, filling up the ground previously shared with the opposition. Perusing the photos later, I find one shot with nine cleats stuck out of the bottom of the pile. I wonder where the other one is.

The lads wind down after a while, pick themselves up, dust themselves off, and engage in the procession of handshakes with the Hanahan lads, who make their way up the hill and on the bus for a ride made longer by disappointing circumstance. They gave it their best.

Shortly after the ceremonies, the presentation of trophies and the placing of medals around necks, what’s left of the crowd ambles out, and everyone takes pictures of everyone else in triplicate.

There’s no bad way to win a state championship, but this is the way it ought to be.