By MONTE DUTTON

NEWBERRY – Clinton has fallen behind in the first half of all three football Fridays and come back to win two of them. The Red Devils retained the CNNGA Battle of the Belt by winning for the fourth time in a row against Newberry, 23-14.

Once again, Red Devils head coach Corey Fountain expressed pride in his team’s level of fitness. When the tough got going, Clinton (2-1) got tough.

“I thought they settled in,” he said. “They hit us in the mouth on offense. They were getting to us on the line of scrimmage. We bunkered down and made some adjustments at halftime.

“On defense, our guys just kept getting more energy as the game went on. That’s what I’m proud of. That’s the strength of conditioning that Coach (Adam) Howell drills into them every day, and that’s huge in the second half of games. You can tell what kind of shape you’re in, how strong you are and what kind of physicality and toughness you have.”

Javen Cook is not a large young man, but he is deceptively powerful and a workhorse who has led Clinton in rushing in all three games. Against the Bulldogs, Cook carried the ball 22 times for 235 net yards.

“All that work in the weight room is what makes all of us strong,” he said. “It’s a team effort, and those guys up front clear holes for me.”

Those Clinton kids are believers in hard work. After games, it is a recurring theme.

In the former half, Newberry (2-1) outgained Clinton 145 yards to 141. In the latter, the Red Devils’ edge was 228-107.

Clinton rushed for 369 yards in the game, with four digging for 39 or more. The Red Devils netted 200 more yards on the ground than the Bulldogs.

Quarterback Tushawan Richardson hit 4/6 passes – two apiece to Chris Boyd and Maison Tinsley – for 35 yards and rushed for 39 yards in eight carries.

Cook has led Clinton rushers in all three games, running his total to 444.

Newberry’s two quarterbacks, Bryce Satterwhite and Kenton Caldwell, combined to connect on 13/19 passes but for only 83 yards. Satterwhite was 11/17 for 55. Caldwell primarily turned to the run, leading the Bulldogs with 92 yards in 11 carries. The only turnover by either team was an interception by Clinton’s Austin Boyd of Satterwhite.

It wasn’t always that way.

The Bulldogs and Red Devils started out as close as the first-half score, 7-6. Clinton’s defense stiffened as the game progressed, but it was timely throughout. Newberry was 1/8 on third-down conversions and 1/4 on fourth downs.

Newberry scored the game’s first points late in the first quarter on Satterwhite’s one-yard run. Daniel Teran added the extra point.

Clinton’s offensive engine suffered a few backfires in the first half. Whatever happened in the locker room got all the cylinders firing. The Red Devils didn’t get on the scoreboard until there were only 54 seconds left in the first half. Kason Copeland rushed in from five yards out, but the kick failed.

The Red Devils and Bulldogs swapped the lead in the third quarter. Clinton went up, 12-7, on Cook’s 49-yard dash with 5:39 remaining, but the Bulldogs took the lead, 14-7, on Calab Levy’s 85-yard kickoff return that took 15 seconds.

Clinton pulled ahead for good on yet another big play, D.J. Clark’s 47-yard run, just 1:16 later. Richardson ran in the two-point conversion to make it 20-14, and Lukas Kuykendall cemented the outcome when his 28-yard field goal succeeded with 8:58 to go in the game.

“The relentless effort was there on both sides,” Fountain said. “It wasn’t going our way the first half, but in the second half, I felt like our guys turned it up a notch.”

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