By MONTE DUTTON

Playoff baseball is tense.

Playoffs in all major sports are intense. In pro basketball and hockey, I have little interest in the regular seasons. Then I love the playoffs.

Baseball, though, is as much religion as sport.

Either the Dodgers are going to win the World Series again, or the Reds are the worst team in the postseason. Cincinnati dog-paddles in the Ohio. Los Angeles surfs in the Pacific.

Left-handed batters have the prettier swings. The prettiest now belongs to Jose Ramirez.

I love the Boston Red Sox. My daddy loved the Red Sox. His favorite player was Ted Williams. Mine was Carl Yastrzemski.

If only the Red Sox had played someone other than the Yankees in the first round, I would have been very happy. I would have reasoned that they made the playoffs, which didn’t seem likely early in the season.

Losing to the Yankees means agony.

I’m not looking forward to writing about the Liberty-Clinton game. It messes with my habits.

One gets in the habit of alternating. Clinton evened its record as the Red Devils shut out Union County.

Maybe I’d more adept if the teams were named Bulldogs, Yellow Jackets or Tigers. It would happen more often. But noooo. I write mainly about Red Devils, Paladins and Blue Hose.

Paul Sutherland is in his fifth season at Liberty. He is 17-24. Liberty has lost in the first round of the playoffs in each of the past three seasons.

The first week of Region 1-2A pits Liberty (4-2) at Clinton and Chesnee (3-2) at Blacksburg (0-6). Landrum (3-3) is idle.

In history, Clinton is 7-1 in overtime. The loss was in 1964, when Woodruff won by penetration*. The Wolverines are the only opponent the Red Devils have played in overtime twice.

The Red Devils haven’t lost a region game since 2021. Chapman edged Clinton, 27-26. The Red Devils have won 14 straight since.

Javen Cook leads Clinton in rushing with 636 yards and 11 touchdowns. Owen Glenn has 27/70 passes for 396 yards. The leading receiver is P.J. McGowan with 12 receptions for 208 yards.

So far, the Presbyterian College football team has outscored its five opponents by 148 points (213-65), ranking the Blue Hose fifth nationally in points differential.

It’s bye week for the 5-0 (1-0 Pioneer Football League) Hose, who face a stern test next week in Indianapolis when they face Butler (3-2, 1-0).

Friday night’s high-school schedule finds Clinton (3-3) opening at Wilder Stadium against Liberty (4-2), Laurens (0-5) visiting Fountain Inn (3-3) and Laurens Academy (5-1, 1-0) hosting Wardlaw Academy (1-4, 0-1).

Radio/streaming coverage is provided by WPCC (96.5 FM, 1410 AM, largetime.net) for Liberty-Clinton and GoLaurens.com for Laurens-Fountain Inn.

WPCC broadcasts “Saturday Morning Rewind” at 9 a.m., followed by a replay of Friday night’s game.

*Penetration was a way to settle games that involved both teams getting one possession. The winner was the team that gained the most yards.

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