By MONTE DUTTON

I sometimes quibble with the basic math of football coaches.
A team shouldn’t go for two until it has to. On Saturday night, Missouri was down, 21-6, and scored a touchdown. The Tigers went for two and failed. They tried because they wanted to get within seven points, but missing left them nine back. Kick it and go for two the next time.
A team scores first but misses the extra point. The next time it scores, it goes for two. I can see that in the fourth quarter, or maybe the third in a defensive struggle, but the winner of many of these games winds up with more than 50 points. Don’t sweat it midway through the first quarter.

With a nine-point lead, the Gamecocks went for it on fourth down in their own territory … twice. They had a redo because, at the last moment, officials decided to look at the previous play. They failed both times. They deserved it. Don’t gamble with the momentum. That’s not mathematical. It’s psychological.
From a personal standpoint, it was a lovely assortment of football games.
Clinton High won. Laurens Academy won. Furman won. Presbyterian won.

Clemson won. South Carolina won. Georgia won.
I was sort of moping a bit on Friday. I went to Wilder Stadium partly because it’s not much more than a mile away, but I correctly expected a rout, and I knew a great basketball game was being played in Greenville, where Tulane was playing Furman.
Furman won. I’m neurotic. If the Paladins had lost, a tiny corner of my mind would have declared it my fault. That’s not mathematical, either. It’s nuts.

Presbyterian College has won five games for the first time since 2014, the fifth being a 42-23 Pioneer Football League victory in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., over Marist on Saturday.
Steve Englehart’s Blue Hose won a third straight game for the first time since the COVID spring of 2021, which was when they last had a winning record (4-3) in Tommy Spangler’s final season as head coach.

PC won’t have one this year, but a victory at home over Butler next Saturday would provide a break-even mark. The Blue Hose enter that season ender with three straight conference wins for the first time since 2006.
The basic facts are more impressive once the history is considered.
Presbyterian (5-6, 3-4 PFL) has won its past three games by a combined margin of 68 points. At Marist (1-10, 1-7), the Blue Hose piled up 456 yards of offense, 354 of them through the air.

Collin Hurst, PC’s freshman quarterback, hit 21/27 passes for 269 yards. He hasn’t thrown an interception in the last four games.
Wide receiver Cincere Gill and tight end Nathan Levicki combined for more points than the entire Marist offense by themselves. Each scored touchdowns on their first two catches.
Since succeeding Kevin Kelley as head coach in 2022, Englehart has won one, four and five games. A sixth is quite a test. Butler (9-2, 5-2) defeated Saint Thomas, 36-20, on Saturday in Indianapolis. PC hasn’t won five straight games since 2007.

It won’t be easy. Two of Presbyterian’s three PFL wins were against doormats Stetson (2-8, 0-6) and Marist. Butler trails only Drake (7-2, 6-1), which defeated the Blue Hose in overtime, 19-16, in Clinton on Oct. 19.
The Blue Hose needed 13 seconds to register the first touchdown of the day, perfectly executing a 79-yard trick play where Dominic Kibby lofted a deep ball to Gill on a double pass.
The lead was short-lived. The Red Hawks’ quarterback, Sonny Mannino, hit Jackson Conners-McCarthy on a 62-yard bomb two minutes, 11 seconds later.

Still in the opening chapter, Marist acquired its only lead with a one-yard, Lincoln Cardillo dive past the pylon, although the follow-up PAT was no good. The 13-7 edge didn’t even make it to the second quarter.
A 57-yard Zach Switzer kick return set up Hurst’s six-yard scramble with eight seconds remaining.
On the second play of quarter number two, Brooks Russ-Martin picked off a deep Mannino pass. Gill promptly hauled in his second TD in as many catches on a 51-yarder that boosted the lead to eight.

Marist was able to connect on a 43-yard Connor Mendini field goal to stay within striking distance.
The next PC score took nearly seven minutes before Hurst found Levicki in the and zone on third-and-goal from the 17.
For the Red Foxes, everything fell apart in the second half.

Marist failed on six straight drives before Tristan Shannon scored on a 60-yard run with 1:24 left.
Levicki scored again on a 36-yard pass from Hurst. The other twin in the PC backfield, Bradley Russ-Martin, joined his brother with an interception late in the third quarter.
Worth Warner’s two-yard run boosted the PC edge to 42-16 before the Red Hawks’ late score.
Senior linebacker Alex Herriott made 10 tackles, surpassing Colby Campbell (2017-20) for second place in PC’s Division I era.
Take a look at the stats here.

Meanwhile, the Crusaders are going to the state.
After upending Jefferson Davis Academy, 36-28, in Blackville, Laurens Academy (9-3) takes on Richard Winn, which has won two games against the Crusaders this season and hasn’t lost to LA since 2007.
Laurens Academy has won three straight games since Winn (11-0) won, 62-12, on Oct. 25. The Eagles won the first matchup, 56-20, on Sept. 12 and advanced to the finals with a second win over Wardlaw, 31-12, on Friday.
Why is the championship game being played at W.W. King in Batesburg instead of at Charleston Southern University, site of the other SCISA finals? The likely answer is that eight-man football is played on a field that is narrower than regulation for 11-man teams.
As per the norm, Garrett Murphy led the Crusaders with 184 yards rushing and 76 receiving. He scored all five touchdowns, four of them on the ground.
Murphy, a senior, has rushed for 2,095 yards this season and scored 34 touchdowns.
Garrison Vaughan twice sacked JDA quarterback Colton Loadholt, as the Crusaders ended the Raiders’ 12-game winning streak.

Presbyterian’s men’s basketball team fell in Georgia to Kennesaw State, 85-67, on Saturday.
Simeon Cottle led the Owls with 27 points, zeroing in on 5/6 triples and all 12 free-throw tries. Ricardo Wright added 15, Adrian Wooley scored 13, and Braedan Lue grabbed 11 rebounds. Kennesaw State (3-1) forced 14 PC turnovers while committing 10, building a 46-27 lead in the first half.
Jonah Pierce led the Blue Hose with 14 points and 10 rebounds. Jamahri Harvey and Jaylen Peterson each scored 11.

Both teams shot 45 percent from the floor, but the Owls outrebounded the Hose, 37-32, and Presbyterian (2-3) was outscored 21-9 off turnovers, 17-12 on second chances, 13-8 on fast breaks and 33-24 off the bench.
The Blue Hose do not play at home again until Dec. 11. Next up are three games at the Axe ‘Em Classic, a round robin on Thursday, Friday and Saturday in Nacogdoches, Texas, against, in order, host Stephen F. Austin, Youngstown State and Monmouth.

Take a look at the stats here.
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