By MONTE DUTTON

LIBERTY – Before Friday night’s end to the regular-season, Clinton High School’s football team ran through a banner that read:
HERE TO SHOW Y’ALL WHO THE REAL DEVILS ARE
With due respect to the Red Devils of Liberty (5-4. 2-2), the cheerleaders got it right. Clinton (7-2, 4-0 Region 1-2A) rolled and wrapped up its third straight championship at the playoff entry level, vanquishing Liberty, 42-22, at the particularly appropriate Red Devil Stadium.
“It’s awesome for our guys, it’s awesome for our coaches,” said Clinton head coach Corey Fountain.

“They prepared these guys, and the guys went out and executed the game plan.
“I’m happy for our fans, but we’ve got a lot more goals in store for the playoffs.”
Only Red Devils stopped Red Devils, and for the ones from Clinton, penalties did as much damage.
Junior running back Javen Cook rushed for Clinton’s first three touchdowns on jaunts of nine, 18 and 57 yards and 114 in seven carries, all in the first half, as the visiting Devils built a 29-7 advantage.
As hosts say on game shows, “But that’s not all.”
In the latter half, some of the names changed, but the results remained the same. Clinton’s offense piled up 325 yards on the ground and 91 through the air.

Quarterback Tushawan Richardson ran for 111 yards in four carries and completed three of his four passes. He scored on a 35-yard ramble and a 65-yard pass to Devin Swindler.
Few teams have been hindered so little by 135 yards in penalties.
“We’ve got to cut down on the stupid penalties if we’re going to be a championship team,” Fountain said. “We’ve got to cut those out.”
Liberty could have won the region title by defeating Clinton, but Chesnee (5-5, 3-1) took the second seed by virtue of a 47-13 victory over Blacksburg. Liberty settled for third. Landrum (5-4, 1-3) also made the postseason from Region 1.

Led by quarterback Logan Smith, who passed for 120 yards (7/13) and rushed for 40, Liberty amassed 310 yards. Liberty could move the ball, just not fast enough.
“It was a great job by our offense,” Fountain said. “We executed when we needed to execute. We moved the ball down the field, whether it was a run or a pass. I thought Tushawan (Richardson) operated really well.
“I can’t say enough about our offensive line that did a great job blocking. We’ve just got to keep doing that. We’ve got to stack up wins. We’ve got to go 1-0 every week.”

Neither team committed a turnover, but the final points occurred on a safety when a snap turned into a hot grounder that rolled past backup quarterback Owen Glenn, bounced past diving players from both teams and through the end zone. Only 3:09 remained at that point.
Maison Tinsley provided a determined two-point conversion by somehow corralling a faulty snap and getting into the end zone.

K.J. Vance also produced a 59-yard rushing touchdown early in the third quarter. Clinton had three touchdowns called back, one of which was a kickoff return by Cook. An end-zone drop of a perfect Richardson bomb cost Clinton another, if only momentarily.
One statistic that played no role was time of possession. Clinton had the ball for only 14:10 of the 48 minutes. Since Clinton averaged 13.9 yards a play, it didn’t matter.

The first foe in the playoffs is Pelion (2-8, 2-4 Region 2-2A), which defeated American Leadership Academy of Lexington, 28-6, on Friday. The Panthers face the Red Devils at Wilder Stadium next Friday at 7:30 p.m.
“We’ve got to assess things we made mistakes on, fix those and make sure our guys are healthy and ready to go,” Fountain said.

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