By MONTE DUTTON
Baseball is a funny game. Joe Garagiola named a book that. The first person who said it was probably in the first game. Garagiola gets credit because he wrote the book.
Kids go to baseball games to play. They’ll take up any vacant space and bounce old tennis balls off something hard. At Clinton High School on Friday night, the game was briefly delayed when a kid missed the back of the dugout and a tennis ball bounced across the infield.
A Red Devil player retrieved the soft yellow ball and threw it into the night air as far as he could.
“Make ‘em work to get it back,” he said.
It was exactly the right way to handle it. Kids don’t get to be kids enough. Let he who is without boyhood sin cast the first tennis ball.
The coming week is crucial as the baseball regular season winds down.
The odds favor Laurens in three Region 2-4A games against Wade Hampton. The Raiders, at 7-2 in the league, enter the series – Monday and Friday in Laurens, Wednesday in Taylors – with a game lead over Greer and two over Riverside, both of which they have already played and beaten two out of three.
Yes, Greer (6-3) is playing three against Riverside (5-4), twice on the Warriors’ home field. If Laurens defeats Wade Hampton two out of three, what happens in Greer doesn’t matter. If Greer sweeps Riverside, or vice-versa, the Raiders have the series advantage. The only way the Warriors can win the region by sweeping Greer while Wade Hampton is sweeping Laurens, which is unlikely.
Clinton’s road to the Region 4-3A title is more complicated and the race closer. The Red Devils have lost twice to Woodruff (7-11, 4-2), which has lost twice to Emerald (7-7-1, 3-1), which plays Clinton for the first time Tuesday in the Red Devils’ valley park.
First Clinton (10-7, 3-2) plays a non-region game at home on Monday versus Blue Ridge, then follows with the Vikings in Clinton on Tuesday and in Greenwood on Friday.
The Red Devils have a game to make up against Union County (3-1), which is playing Woodruff twice this week. Chester (4-12, 0-6) has completed its region schedule.
Belton-Honea Path’s 13-10 victory over Laurens on Saturday was certainly plausible.
The Raiders were coming off a big Region 2-4A victory on the road (at Riverside) Friday night and took on the Bears the following afternoon. Laurens (15-5) had a letdown, early on, a false sense of security. , perhaps. BHP (16-3) isn’t bad. The Raiders won the first game between the two, 2-1.
It was a wild, exciting, sloppy game.
A young ballplayer tells himself he’d better be ready. Sometimes himself doesn’t buy it.
Both teams were ready to hit. Laurens had 14 of them. BHP had nine.
Neither team put much strain on its pitchers, who in turn put little on the other’s batters. The Raiders sent four hurlers to the hill. The Bears got by with three.
Neither team was ready to field, particularly Laurens, which committed six errors. Connor Rice (L) gave up seven runs in 3-2/3 innings. One was earned.
Ethan McElveen 
was the meat in the Bears’ pitching sandwich. Throwing 54 pitches in 4-2/3 innings – between Boyd Maynard’s 82 in three and Blaine Jennings’ 10 in 2/3 of an inning – McElveen gave up five hits and two runs with a walk and three strikeouts.
Laurens led 8-1 entering the bottom of the third inning. An effective way to overcome a big deficit is to score five runs twice in the final three innings. Two of BHP’s 13 runs were earned. All nine of its hits were singles.
At the bottom of the Bears’ order, Tye Kelly stroked three hits and scored three runs. In the third spot, third baseman Lane McGaha was 2/4 with three RBI.
The 4-5 slots in the Raider order mimicked each other. Owen Pridgen and Asher Goss both batted four times, scored two runs, collected three hits and drove in one. Pridgen ripped a double. Goss laced a triple.
Wade Hampton visits Laurens on Monday for the first of three region games.
Laurens made the Bears dance in the junior-varsity game.
The Raiders put four runs on the board in the first inning en route to a 14-2 victory that got out of hand at the end.
Laurens (13-6) were up 4-2 entering the sixth inning, then scored six runs in that frame and four more in the seventh.
All the while, Karson Vinson (W), Jaylen Bluford and John Paul Smith were teaming up for a no-hitter, marred by eight walks but distinguished by seven strikeouts.
Preston Dixon, Samuel Adams, Braden Yarbrough and Bluford all put up two hits. Bluford and Dixon doubled, and Adams tripled. Dixon scored three runs. Ke’Allen Blackwell and Bluford each drove in three. Brayden Patterson walked four times.
Aiden Jenkins (L) gave up four runs off three hits with four walks and two strikeouts in 4-2//3 innings. Three more arms followed.
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