By MONTE DUTTON

Not enough people realize what Presbyterian College baseball has just done.

Going to work on the Blue Hose’ sweep of UNC Asheville on Friday, I anxiously awaited the local news. PC won the Big South regular season for the first time in history, that being 2007, when the Blue Hose joined the conference. Elton Pollock’s club won its final seven league games and finished with a record of 18-6 (29-25 overall).

Not a word at 6. (The day’s doubleheader had begun a 11 a.m.) Not a video clip at 11. A sentence.

I don’t think it’s gotten enough notice here. On this website, if Corey Fountain shaved his beard, it would draw more hits than PC winning the Big South tournament. Right now, in analytics, the Laurens High baseball team dwarfs the one of the college.

This website covers Laurens County Sports, and partly I provide what people want, and partly what people need, and partly what I want to write, and partly what’s important.

PC baseball is important. What it has done this year is extraordinary. If the Blue Hose can capitalize on the top seed and win the Big South tournament, it’s going to be the most celebrated season in school history. It might already be.

Mark Twain once wrote a story titled “Fenimore Cooper’s Literary Offenses.” I could write one on Presbyterian College’s athletics offenses. I have, in fact. Several times.

PC is a good place. It’s just not healthy to field teams that, by and large, lose so often. Kids who put so much into athletics deserve a fighting chance, and that’s what the baseball team has. It’s highly uncommon at PC, and it fosters hope.

Taken in tandem with the football team’s improvement and the stirring finish of women’s basketball season, optimism cannot help but rise.

The Class 4A championship series that begins Monday night in James Island is hard to handicap. While there is some overlap, it is uncommon for Upstate schools to play Low Country ones.

The Raiders (26-6) and Trojans (27-3-1) have three common opponents: Northwestern, Eastside and Wade Hampton. James Island won all three games. Laurens is 6-1, as the Eagles and Generals are also in Region 2-4A with the Raiders. The Raiders defeated Northwestern, 8-0, in the playoff opener. James Island won, 10-0, in the regular season.

Laurens went 3-0 versus Eastside and 2-1 against Wade Hampton. James Island won single games, 4-1 against the Eagles and 11-1 against the Generals.

The Trojans’ Jake Amman and Taj Marchand are batting .494 and .449, respectively. Three pitchers – Collin Anderson (1.38), Cooper Jones (1.42) and Kyle Stock (1.83) – have earned-run averages under 2.00.

James Island is 19 miles from Hanahan, the Charleston-area school Clinton defeated for the Class 3A title a year ago.

There was just too damn much going on Sunday.

I might love Indy 500 qualifying more than the Indy 500.

What is more boring in sports than NASCAR qualifying? Nothing. Anything more boring than NASCAR qualifying is probably not a sport. At Indy, they don’t just go out and run a lap. They run four laps on the clock, with no room for error. In the last-chance round, a desperate young driver, Nolan Siegel, wrecked in turn two. It’s scary.

Fortunately, the Indiana Pacers blew out the New York Knicks in a Sunday-afternoon seventh game. I wasn’t particularly rooting for the Pacers. I just didn’t want a close game to take me away from Indy, NASCAR at North Wilkesboro and the PGA.

I loved everything about the sports on TV Sunday except having to switch back and forth.

Decision time is approaching. What’s next? Do I keep doing it the way I am now? Do I amend this site? Do I continue to concentrate on local sports coverage, or do I change my priorities?

I’m thinking. I’m thinking.

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