By MONTE DUTTON

INMAN, S.C.  – Chapman High School’s football team wore chrome helmets that were somehow navy blue. Looking across the way, a cluster of quicksilver glinted on the sideline, similar to a group of tubas in the Panthers’ band.

Chapman (3-0) just shone more brightly on Friday night. The 45-13 score was not a fluke. Quarterback Ashton Moore torched a young defense for 227 yards and three touchdown passes, connecting on 12/17 passes. Kellion Tucker caught seven of them, for 105 yards and two scores.

Early in the second half, Moore hit Eric Gaffney with a 79-yard strike. That put Chapman up, 24-7. It was all over but the crying, and the rout was on.

It was not that the Red Devils couldn’t move. It was that the Panthers moved faster. Angelo Cromer, who missed the Newberry game, netted 92 yards in 18 carries, and quarterback Owen Glenn rushed for both TDs and gained 56 yards on the ground, but the passing – 3/14, 25 yards – was lackluster.

As a team, Clinton (2-1) rushed for 249 yards but lost two fumbles. A vital cog in the rushing game, Rhett Gillliam, left early with a left-knee injury.

Clinton head coach Corey Fountain and Chapman’s Harry Cabaniss are 4-4 against each other. The loss will likely cost the Red Devils second place in the Class 2A rankings and vault the Panthers into the 3A top 10.

But it’s early.

Clinton’s only respite from a string of five road trips in six games is next week when Union County (0-4) visits Wilder Stadium. Woodruff (3-1) visits Chapman next.

The key to stopping Clinton is not to stop the Red Devils’ high-powered running game but to contain it. The Chapman defense slowed Clinton down, which the Red Devils could not do to the Panthers’ passing attack.

Clinton never led but tied the game, 7-7, on Glenn’s 8-yard run with 6:20 remaining in the first half.

Though the Red Devils outgained the Panther, 249-185, in rushing yardage, the game’s leading rusher was Chapman’s Teagan Cantrell with 123 yards on 13 carries. The Panthers led, 17-7, at halftime and stretched the lead to 38-7 on Kelton Tucker’s 43-yard catch from Moore with 10:31 to play.

A 75-yard kickoff return by Gaffney – yeah, the guy with the 79-yard pass reception – made the ending even more bitter for the Clinton faithful, who were outnumbered about 2/1 by the home partisans.

It may have been the first time the price of gasoline held down the Clinton crowd. I filled up for the bargain price of $3.73 on the way down from Brevard.

One game does not a season make. Sometimes a dose of mortality steels a team’s resolve.

The loss broke an all-time win streak of seven in games played on Sept. 11.

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