The backdrop of Presbyterian College’s men’s basketball season is the exhibition games that opened the season … unofficially.

The Blue Hose have played the devil and then the deep, blue sea. Most of the games this season are going to be somewhere in between.

“’I’m very excited,” said head coach Quinton Ferrell. “Basketball is a year-around sport, but you get anxious when you get close to the season. We’ve had a really great preseason. The biggest thing is trying to keep everybody healthy.”

The opening game at Templeton Center is versus Navy at 7 p.m. on Monday night. East Tennessee State visits on Nov. 8. The Blue Hose visit Georgia State and South Carolina early and take a West Coast trip to play Sacramento State, California and UCLA. They play The Citadel in Asheville, N.C., Wofford, Morehead (Ky.) State, East Carolina and Manhattan before opening the conference slate with a home game against USC Upstate on Jan. 3.

On Oct. 17, Ferrell’s freshly minted team ventured up to Clemson and fell, 83-44. On Tuesday night, Central Carolina Christian bused up to Clinton from Cayce and succumbed to the Blue Hose, 115-43.

What do the Tigers and Gladiators have in common? Oh, sneakers. Shorts. A bouncing orange ball.

Jonah Pierce led the Blue Hose against Clemson with 11 points and 10 rebounds. Six scored in double figures against Central Carolina, led by Pierce with 17 points and 13 rebounds.

Pierce, a 6-10 redshirt senior from Sanford, Fla., averaged 13.1 points and 7.0 rebounds in the eight games he played last year before being sidelined by injury. The centerpiece of Ferrell’s effort to push his seventh team above .500 – last year it was 14-19 and 7-9 in the Big South Conference — is Pierce.

“He was arguably our best player, and he didn’t get to play during our conference schedule,” said Ferrell. “Your mind wonders what we could have been had we had Jonah all season. Getting him back with the corps of guys we have around him gives us a chance to have a really special year.

“Having a guy like Jonah inside, demanding double teams from our opponents, is going to loosen up things for our perimeter players.”

Kory Mincy, who averaged 15.0 points with 144 assists last season, is now at George Mason. Kobe Stewart, who scored at a 15.3 clip and with 5.2 rebounds, has graduated. Eight players are back. Six are new. Houston Jones and James Lovorn now wear the red of Newberry College as redshirt seniors.

Junior guard Carl Parrish, from Miami Gardens, Fla., averaged 6.9 points. Ferrell called him “a tremendously hard worker who keeps getting better.”

Last season Presbyterian started 5-3, lost five of the next seven and eight of the first 10 conference games and closed with three straight victories and an overtime loss to Radford in the conference tournament. The goal for Ferrell is to smooth out the curves in last season’s graph.

“We have a blueprint for success, given our institution, the resources of the college, the landscape, the community and things like that,” said Ferrell.

Ferrell mentioned in particular the potential of transfers Josh Pickett from the University of Denver and Erik Taylor from Sam Houston (Texas) State.

Take a look at the schedule here.

Six of second-year coach Tiffany Sardin’s women’s players began their college careers elsewhere, ranging from Niagara University in Lewiston, N.Y., to Cochise College of Arizona.

Last season Sardin took over the program after one of its better seasons. Under Alaura Sharp, the Blue Hose played two games in the NCAA Tournament and were eliminated by the South Carolina team that went on to win the national championship. Sharp moved on to Appalachian State, and last year the depleted Blue Hose went 6-24, 4-12 in conference play. They also open on Monday at Templeton, playing Warren Wilson College of Swannanoa, N.C., at 4:30.

“I believe the young women we have want to be here, to be something special and know what it’s going to take,” Sardin said. “I’m happy with what we have. I think we have an extremely competitive team. I think we’ll match up well against a lot of the teams in our league.”

Among others, the Blue Hose visit Wake Forest, Elon, UNC Wilmington, Coastal Carolina, Seattle (in Miami, Fla.), Furman and Virginia Tech. PC plays UNC Greensboro, Eastern Kentucky and Jacksonville (Ala.) State at Templeton Center.

“The attitude of the team is what I really like right now. It’s the attitude, how they keep showing up, and they’re extremely coachable.”

The top returning players are Aminata Tal, a senior from Saint Louis, Senegal, who averaged 6.7 points, and Shelby Fiddler, a senior from Roanoke, Va., who averaged 6.6.

Take a look at the schedule here.

Junior Mia Carles of Clinton High won the individual title of the Class A/AA state girls’ golf state tournament at Chester Golf Club on Tuesday.

The A/AA State Girls Golf Championship was held at Chester Golf Club on Tuesday, October 28.  Originally schedule as a two-day, 36-hole event, rain shortened it to a single round on Tuesday.

Carles shot a three-under-par 69. Chesnee won the team title at 346.

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