By MONTE DUTTON

At about the same time I arrived in the baseball valley on Tuesday, a familiar figure in a red shirt and a purple cap yelled my name. He brought someone with him.

Was it a Clinton fan with Saluda roots? The only such person I know is CHS women’s basketball coach John Gardner.

But, no. It was, of course, Tommy Spangler, whose son Peyton coaches the Red Devils, who were playing the Tigers in the first game of the Class 2A playoffs. The red and purple is a familiar combination of mine, since I graduated from both Clinton High School and Furman University.

The companion was Hugh Ryan, defensive mainstay of two 10-win Furman teams. Spangler is, of course, former head coach at Presbyterian, former volunteer coach at Clinton High, assistant coach at Furman and general figure of legendary renown.

I’d rather talk to Tommy Spangler than Bill Belichick, any day, and I occasionally bump into Spangler at the Waffle House.

Imagine an edition of Jeopardy.

I’ll take Great Number Sixes for 100.

For the Paladins, one played on offense and the other on defense.

Who are Tyler Huff and Hugh Ryan?

Correct.

Spangler was head coach at PC when Huff, who went on to star at both Furman and Jacksonville State, was his quarterback, and he coached Ryan, a splendid safety, in the Paladins’ defensive backfield. Now Spangler and Ryan coach safeties and special teams together. My guess is that Spangler got Ryan, a Dutch Fork product, to take a look at the Clinton experience.

Although Ryan was on the Furman staff last year, I hadn’t talked to him since the glorious autumn of 2023, other than maybe an exchange of “how’s it goings” in the hall of the football offices.

My time was richly spent wandering around shooting photos, chatting with Tommy and Hugh outside the fence, and watching Clinton beat Saluda in a jam-up game of clutch plays.

Ryan and I have one thing in common. We both graduated cum laude from Furman, a mere 44 years apart.

Clinton has beaten Saluda three times this season, each one harder than the previous one and all in the past nine days. It’s true that the scores, in order, were 14-3, 3-1 and 5-1, but Tuesday’s 5-1 game had more tension than a string on a bow, and the Red Devils worked themselves out of more jams than a jar of peanut butter.

Grape jam, in this case.

Saluda (12-11-1) put at least one runner on base in every inning and led, 1-0, until the bottom of the fourth. Clinton (19-6) has won 14 of its last 16 games. The Tigers have lost seven in a row, three of them to the Red Devils.

For a playoff game, the Tigers played their hearts out, and so too did Clinton.

Saluda scored its only run when pitcher Joshua Uhlar led off with a single and scored after advancing to second on a groundout, to third on a wild pitch and home on another groundout.

While Uhlar kept Clinton at bay, Tristan Daniels and Jeremy Matthews opened the second with back-to-back singles, but Tanner Finley struck out the next three batters.

In the third, Uhlar and Drew Arant singled back-to-back. After a flyout to center, Eduardo Dominguez lined to second baseman Talan Campbell for a double play.

In the fourth, Saluda had runners on first and second with one out and a 3-0 count to Arant, but Tanner Finley worked the count full and Arant grounded into another double play, shortstop Jaydon Glenn to second baseman Campbell to first baseman Zack Lawson.

There the tide turned.

Jaydon Glenn led off the fourth with a double to deep left-center field, and Saluda catcher Sid Shaw threw wildly to first on Owen Glenn’s sacrifice, allowing Jaydon Glenn to score, and Owen Glenn scored on Campbell’s sacrifice fly.

In the fifth, Brett Young, who had walked, scored when brother Luke reached on an error. Isaac Cane, who closed out on the mound, doubled in Owen Glenn with the fourth run in the sixth, and Tanner Finley, the winning pitcher, singled in the final score, driving in Graydon Watkins.

Tanner Finley hit a batter, and Cane issued a sixth-inning walk. Fifty of Finley’s 72 pitches were strikes, and 21 of Cane’s 30 found the zone.

Seven Clinton batters rapped a hit apiece, and Camden Finley, Cane and Jaydon Glenn lashed doubles. The Red Devils did not commit an error.

Uhlar had three of Saluda’s eight hits.

“We preach ‘ win every pitch’,” said head coach Peyton Spangler. “’Turn the page,’ ‘ride the wave,’ all those cliches. They show up even more in playoff baseball.

“We’re not a good enough to come out here and dominate. We have to show maturity and understand there are some bad things that are going to happen. We’re not going to play perfect. We haven’t played even close to perfect. … We’re not going to outslug anybody, but if we can lay down bunts and get our athletes on base, we can put some pressure on [the opposition).”

Clinton visits Chesnee (17-10), the Region 2 champion and a 9-2 winter over Central (Pageland) on Thursday.

Speaking of Central, the Daniel Lions (20-7), who reside in the town of that name, pulled out a 3-2 victory over Laurens (17-9), leaving the Raiders to host Blue Ridge (12-12) which eliminated Travelers Rest, the same school Laurens defeated 13-0, by a score of 12-1.

Bennett Edwards gave the Raiders a short-lived lead with a first-inning sacrifice fly, driving in Zay Pulley, who had singled.

The Lions took the lead in the third inning on RBI singles by Spencer Conn and Quincy Cumbie. Another run-producing safety, by Jasean Perry, put Daniel up 3-1 in the fourth.

Pulley’s ground-ball out drove in Tristan Buzbee in the seventh, but with runners on second an third with two out, Coleman Coker struck out to end the game.

Both teams had seven hits. Luke Turner pitched 6-2/3 innings to get the decision before yielding to Jackson Ownbey for the final out.

Grayson Ledford took the loss, pitching four innings (three runs, two earned) and leaving in favor of Connor Rice for the final two.

Edwards, who was walked intentionally in the seventh, provided the game’s only extra-base hit, a double in the third inning in which Ben Willis was thrown out the plate trying to score.

Presbyterian College’s baseball collapse continued unabated as Wofford defeated the Blue Hose, 7-2, in Spartanburg.

Ryan Wynn, Tanner Hardin and Tyler Bak led the Terriers (28-22) with two hits each.

Trey Fenderson, Nick Smith and Ryan Ouzts provided a like number for PC (17-28). Smith homered to drive in the Blue Hose’ two runs. The score was tied when Wofford scored five runs in the bottom of the sixth inning.

Presbyterian has lost six straight games and 12/13. It visits Western Carolina on Wednesday.

Adherents of every endeavor consider their favorite “the ultimate team sport.” I heard a 13-year veteran of the National Hockey League say that fighting was an example of sportsmanship.

NASCAR fans boldly claim it’s a team sport, even though, strictly speaking, it isn’t. The teams are extremely important, but no sport where there are 40 entrants but only one winner can claim the trophy is a team sport. It’s an individual sport. The teams build the cars, determine the strategy and make the pit stops, but even golfers rely heavily on their caddies.

Most of my books are available on Amazon.

What can I do to get you to sample my fiction? How about a cheap sample of short stories, Longer Songs? The stories all originated in songs I’ve written. It’s been a few years since I published it.

Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell is about a group of people who get themselves unwittingly entangled in a conspiracy of politicians, businessmen (I didn’t write business persons because the ones in the novel are all men), law-enforcement personnel and the intelligence community.