By MONTE DUTTON

Presbyterian College’s men’s basketball team rides a three-game win streak into a Saturday-afternoon game against the current Big South leader, Winthrop.

The Eagles (14-8, 6-1) lead High Point (17-4, 5-1) by a half game. PC (11-10, 4-2) and Radford (11-10, 4-2) are tied for third. Longwood is 3-3, UNC Asheville 3-4, Charleston Southern 2-4, USC Upstate 1-5 and Gardner-Webb 0-6.

Before Winthrop visits Templeton Center to face the Blue Hose at 2 p.m., High Point visits Radford on Friday night at 7.

USC Upstate visits Gardner-Webb, and Charleston Southern is at Longwood. Both those games are also on Friday at 7 p.m.

Admission is free at PC for the Winthrop-PC game.

The PC women, whose home game against Charleston Southern was moved up Friday evening, picked up their first Big South victory on Wednesday, a 50-46 victory at Gardner-Webb.

Aminata Tal scored 18 points to lead Presbyterian (3-16, 1-5), which came from behind by outscoring the Bulldogs 20-13 in the final quarter. Ja’Cia Cunningham scored the Blue Hose’ final five points.

PC ended a 13-game losing streak and had dropped six in a row to Gardner-Webb (6-14, 3-3), which got 14 points from Jaelyn Acker and 13 from Anaya Harris.

Take a look at the stats here.

Though not final – some last-ditch appeals are to be conducted in February – the S.C. High School League has released its likely region alignments.

Apparently, Clinton is to be in Region 2-2A for all sports. (The Red Devils played football in Region 1 and all other sports in Region 3 for the past two years). Clinton joins Chesnee, Greer Middle College, High Point Academy, Landrum, Mountain View Prep, Southside Christian and Woodruff.

Greer Middle and High Point do not field football teams.

Laurens remains in Region 1-4A, which Greenwood and T.L. Hanna rejoin. Also on the Raiders’ slate are Easley, Fountain Inn and Westside. Gaffney has moved down to 2-4A.

Thornwell is aligned in Region 1-A with Abbeville, Calhoun Falls, Dixie, McCormick, Ninety Six, S.C. School for the Deaf & Blind (no football) and Ware Shoals.

Fairfield Central, Batesburg-Leesville, Eau Claire and Blacksburg are among schools dropping from 2A to A.

Class 4A has seven regions. All other classifications have six.

The S.C. Baseball Coaches Association has released its high-school preseason rankings.

Clinton is ranked third in Class 2A behind Batesburg-Leesville and Atlantic Collegiate. Region 3-2A is also represented by No. 9 Mid-Carolina.

Surprisingly, Laurens is not in the 4A top 10, though Region 1 foes Fountain Inn (fourth) and Wren (ninth) are.

Other top-ranked teams are James Island in 5A Div. 1, Berkeley in 5A Div. 2, Airport in 4A, Southside Christian in 3A and Johnsonville in A.

Much is going on. I’m moving, though not far away for now.  Things should lighten a tad by next week. For now, I apologize for losing in a game of catch-up. I’ll soon have more time to devote to my modest craft.

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