By MONTE DUTTON

Unless Tushawan Richardson scores 100 points in a tournament next week, the year’s great stories have run their course.
Well, maybe if he scored 50, which seems possible.
This is unlikely, since Richardson has only scored 58 in his first two games, and, as best I remember, his career best is 37.
The hay of 2024 is in the barn.
Given his superlative performances in both football and basketball, Richardson may be the year’s top phenomenon.

Many of the phenomena practiced at 6 a.m. every Monday and Tuesday and won the state Class 2A football championship on a Thursday afternoon.
One of the year’s better remarks was when Corey Fountain said a secret of Richardson’s success at quarterback was that he played football as if it were basketball.
The only way Clinton could have been more dominant in its new classification was if all the other schools had given up. The Red Devils didn’t choose the demotion. They played in 2A because that’s where their enrollment fit.

Javen Cook was the best small running back I’ve ever seen in high school. Brett Young was the best small linebacker. No one required them to be less good because they were smaller.
Clinton football and Laurens Academy volleyball were the county’s only state champions, but the Crusaders and LDHS reached the state finals in eight-man football and baseball, respectively. So did the LA girls’ basketball team.

I don’t want to pick a formal “Top 10” because it always involves politics. I get tired of hearing about how journalists shouldn’t pick hall of famers because my experience has been that coaches are bigger horse traders than T. Wayne Lukas.
Besides, big stories involve both good and bad. Beyond sports, no one would leave out Hurricane Helene and the Clinton fire.
In August, if anyone had suggested that the Raiders would have a worse season in Greg Porter’s first season as LDHS head football coach than Daryl Smith’s last, I would have bet the ranch instead of putting it up for sale.

I would also bet that the disappointment of 2024 might be the feel-good tale of ’25. Then again, I don’t bet, though I did recently win $20 on a $10 scratch-off. All the commercials say it’s a fun way to help education.
The women’s basketball season at Presbyterian College was miraculous, as most Blue Hose successes are. PC was the fifth seed in the Big South but won the tournament and an NCAA play-in. Then the Hose played South Carolina, which went on to win the national title, at which point Cinderella’s carriage turned back into a pumpkin.

Head coach Alaura Sharp got the job at Appalachian State, and at the moment, PC is 1-11 under Tiffany Sardin.
In baseball, PC won its first-ever Big South regular-season championship but lost its groove in the conference tournament.
Presbyterian’s football season was fun because the Blue Hose won their last four games to finish 6-6. In three seasons, Steve Englehart has gradually moved PC from the middle of nowhere to the outskirts of town.

The Blue Hose are nationally prominent in women’s wrestling, but only four NCAA Division I schools grapple femininely. The past two titles went to Division III North Central College of Naperville, Ill.
Perhaps because I had a hard time staying awake during the CFP’s first-round games, I haven’t yet contracted ESPN Bowl Mania, though one has already gone five overtimes – I didn’t see the ending on account of being too sleepy — and Toledo proved a 7-5 MAC team can beat a 7-5 ACC squad, Pittsburgh, if given six overtimes to do it . The overtimes were so conservatively played that Henry McMaster could have coached both teams.

Laurens Academy defeated Greer Middle College, 44-34, in its most recent girls’ basketball game. Braylee Burke led the Crusaders with 15 points and Sadie Bruyere added nine.

LA (5-3) next takes on Ware Shoals on Saturday, Jan. 4 at 10 a.m. on the Hornets’ home court at 10 a.m.

Denari Lee Jackson, Brayden Patterson and Je’Mauri Lee Williams were Laurens High’s three selections on the All-Region 1-4A football team.

Garrett Murphy was SCISA Region 1 Offensive Player of the Year and Garrison Vaughn Athlete of the Year for Laurens Academy.

Joining them on the All-Region team were Caleb Hardy, Hack Hardy and Anthony Candelas.

Cal Pitts represented Clinton in the Touchdown Energy Cooperatives Bowl (North/South game) in Myrtle Beach on Dec. 21.

The South won the annual all-star game, 28-8.

“I’d rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy.” – Carlton W. Berenda

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Times are changing. I am aware of how irrelevant what I do for a living has become and thus how unimportant my efforts are. The readers appreciate them, but there aren’t enough of them. I doubt there ever will be again.

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The Latter Days is a baseball novel about a former player and manager, Clyde Kinlaw, trying to prove the game hasn’t passed him by. His proof is a raw talent named Taiquan Wattson.
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