By MONTE DUTTON

Clinton got everything right but the final score Friday night at Wilder Stadium.

Woodruff held on to defeat the Red Devils,40-36, behind 203 passing yards from T.J. Morris and 184 rushing from Aiden Gibson.

Clinton (0-1) came from 13 points behind at halftime (27-14) and took the lead twice in the second half. It was what the rivalry used to be when the Red Devils and Wolverines opened each season against each other for most of a half century. In recent years, the two have played in the same Class 3A conference.

Now Woodruff (1-0) is in 3A, but Clinton is now 2A. Opening the season against each other again was a no-brainer.

Woodruff returned 18 starters from a 4-7 team. Clinton has seven starters back on offense and three on defense from a 10-3 squad that reached the Upstate semifinals. The inexperience showed. Neither team could stop the other. The Red Devils piled up 488 net yards, the Wolverines 479. Both teams lost a fumble. Clinton’s Amari Grant intercepted a pass.

The game came down to a fourth-down-and-11 incompletion from the Woodruff 11-yard line with 19 seconds remaining. The Red Devils were out of timeouts and wasted too many valuable seconds. A five-yard penalty was a hindrance.

The Wolverines maintained the lead earned by Gibson’s two-yard run – and Joshua Ruiz’s extra point – with 4:26 remaining. Morris, who completed 15/22 passes, set up the score with a 24-yard connection to Hunter West on fourth-and-11 from the Clinton 31.

Kori Moates and West each snagged five passes for the Wolverines.

“I’ve got to do a better job of game management,” said Clinton head coach Corey Fountain. “At the end of the game, we had stopped the clock earlier with timeouts we didn’t need, but at the time, we did need those timeouts.

“Hopefully, we’re going to play better on special teams, and our defense operates better to where we don’t need to call as many timeouts.”

With a crowd of about 5,000 gathered at freshly refurbished Wilder Stadium, it was everything Clinton-Woodruff used to be.

“We had a lot of real experience returning, and we kind of knew they didn’t,” said second-year Woodruff head coach Brett Sloan. “They’ve got good young players, and they’re a heck of a team. We were able to take advantage on the edges, and then we were able to get our run game going. Our tempo hurt them a little bit, and it was a heck of a win for us.

“This is the fifth time this century that Woodruff beat Clinton, so we’re proud of that.”

Richardson, too, was brilliant at quarterback. The Clinton senior completed 6/14 passes for 119 yards and two touchdowns. He rushed 14 times for 147 yards, and Javen Cook gained 120 yards on 19 attempts.

“Their running back (Gibson) is really good. Give him a lot of credit,” said Fountain. “Their offensive line did a good job, but there were times when we just needed to wrap [Gibson] up, but we slung him around, and he slung us off and was off to the races.

“We’ve just got to do a better job of tackling, a better job of blocking and a better job of not shooting ourselves in the foot with penalties.”

The score was tied, 7-7, when Gibson, almost tackled in the backfield, launched a 98-yard dash down the Woodruff sideline.

Moates had a 58-yard kickoff return in the second quarter. Six plays later, Morris hit Kam Taylor, Woodruff’s lanky tight end, for an 11-yard score that put the Wolverines up, 20-14.

Moates caught Morris’s latter TD pass, a 15-yarder with 40 seconds left in the first half.

The Devils didn’t go down without a fight, scoring 22 second-half points.

Cook blocked a Woodruff point, caught in the secondary by D.J. Clark and returned to the 38. Four plays later, Richardson’s 30-yard ramble gave Clinton its first lead, 28-27, with 3:17 remaining in the third quarter.

The Wolverines went back ahead on Morris’s seven-yard run with 10 seconds left in the third.

Laurens (0-1) visits Clinton next week. Hillcrest defeated the Raiders, 16-0, in Laurens on Friday.

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