By MONTE DUTTON

In terms of organized sports, most fields are fallow as we await the opening salvos of Independence 2024.

Me? I could use the time. Before long, the hills will be alive with the sound of pads popping.

On the county scene, the fireworks signal change this summer in sports.

Laurens District 55 High School has a new football coach, Greg Porter, hired to restore success and offset the indignities of recent seasons.

Clinton High School has been a member of Class 3A for more than half a century. Now it is in 2A, and what’s more, Abbeville, which has ruled it, isn’t.

One of the ironies is that a common first impression of the demotion – if privates and charters go up, somebody’s got to go down – was some version of: Hoo, doggie, us and Abbeville! Goddamighty, dayum!

The Panthers were, instead, consigned to Class A, paired with another Clinton school, Thornwell Charter, which determined later it would not have enough gridders to field a squad this fall.

While I know the Saints faithful will dispute this, I can’t help but wonder if the specter of Abbeville contributed to a lack of willingness to play ball at Thornwell.

One of the principles I learned from two decades of NASCAR was, “The truth is seldom more evident than when being vehemently denied.”

I also suspect that other 2A schools engaged in a game of Idowannem, youtakem. Clinton is inexplicably aligned with one region in football – with Blacksburg, Chesnee, Landrum and Liberty –and another – Chester, Columbia, Eau Claire, Fairfield Central and Mid-Carolina – for everything else.

Come autumn, Clinton fans will be directing their GPS’s to take them to Landrum and Liberty for the first time. The last time I experienced football in Landrum was a preseason scrimmage in 1975.

Laurens is paired in Region 1-4A with Emerald, Fountain Inn, Southside, Westside and Wren.

Porter’s career suggests that the Raiders will improve quickly from the 2-9 season that greased Daryl Smith’s skids. I’m looking forward to it, but I will miss Smith. I don’t know why things didn’t work out, but they didn’t.

The new head coach arrives after going 45-15 in five seasons at Greenville. In nine years at Hillcrest, the first school he faces at LDHS, Porter was 65-45 and won a state championship in 2014.

Clinton opens versus Woodruff at Wilder Stadium. The Red Devils once opened the season with the Wolverines, Raiders and Newberry every year.

For decades.

The Woodruff rivalry was somehow bigger when the two were not in the same region.

The Red Devils have won their last four meetings against Woodruff and the last three against Laurens and Newberry.

As my late buddy Jim McLaurin was fond of saying, “Other’n’at, ain’t much hap’nin’.”

Back in the present, the American Legion baseball teams with county connections stumbled into a Independence week ceasefire.

Clinton Junior Legion Post 56 found no Prosperity in that town as Mid-Carolina dominated the Devils, 12-2, on Tuesday evening.

Only the Glenn cousins, Jaydon and Owen, managed hits. The latter laced a double.

Only one Clinton run was driven in, that by Luke Young’s sacrifice fly. Jaydon Glenn and J.J. Dickson scored the runs.

The bottom seven slots in the Devils order went a combined 0/11.

Rhett Gilliam, the first of four Clinton hurlers, took the loss.

Quan McKinney stopped the Devils (6-4) on the two hits, three walks and four strikeouts.

Mid-Carolina piled up 11 hits.

West Columbia Post 79 edged Greenwood Post 20, 2-1, on Monday night at Brookland-Cayce High School behind stellar pitching from starter Preston Coggins, the winner, and Graham Whittle, who struck out the side in the seventh inning to earn the save.

Christopher Smith was a tough-luck loser for the Braves. He gave up six hits and a walk in a complete game.

Evan Avery, who doubled, Demetrius Warren, Matt Murray and Smith collected the hits for Greenwood (5-7).

Seven Fort Mill Post 43 pitchers combined to doom Chapin-Newberry Post 193/24 on Tuesday night, 6-1.

Chapin-Newberry (8-7) used four hurlers, most notably Clinton’s Carson Glenn, who turned in four innings of quality relief. The southpaw, marked for further service at Spartanburg Methodist, allowed three hits, an unearned run and a walk, striking out four.

Logan Sulli and John Dober each had two hits and two RBI for Fort Mill. The winning pitcher was River Joye.

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