Four varsity football teams - instead of last season’s three - came Thursday to celebrate their programs and look ahead for the 2023 at the Laurens County Touchdown Club.
For the first time in 18 years, Thornwell is fielding a varsity football team in the now-named Thornwell Charter School campus in Clinton. Also presenting in the season’s first meeting at The Ridge in Laurens were olf standbys Laurens Academy, Laurens and Clinton.
Clinton won its season opener, Laurens and Laurens Academy lost theirs, and Thornwell Charter kicked off with back to back games at Calhoun Falls Charter this past Friday and on Sept. 1.
The Saints’ Head Coach Charlie Washington was JV Head Coach at JL Mann and he said it was a “no brainer” to take the TCS head coaching job and reestablish the once proud program of Thornwell High School. The Saints rang the victory bell for the first time in nearly two decades last season with a home JV victory. For the first time this season, TCS is accepting 11th graders.
“This group has never played, they’re smaller and we will turn them into good football players,” Washington said.
Another new head coach this year is Jolly Doolittle for the Laurens Academy Crusaders. “We have a small group and that’s OK,” he said. “If they buy in we will have success now and in the future. We will reap a harvest if we do what needs to be done and don’t give up,” he said.
Doolittle and Clinton Head Coach Corey Fountain were college teammates at North Greenville.
“It’s a new year and there are new faces for us as well,” Fountain said of the Red Devils. “We started working out as soon as the off-season started; we took no days off. We wanted to do anything we could to get 1% better.”
Clinton has 3 returners on offense and 5 returners on defense from a 2022 team that went 13-1.
“We have been working extremely hard,” said Fountain, including 6 a.m. practices this past week to beat a summer heat wave.
Fountain brought with him Red Devil players: Tyshuwan Richardson, Kadon Crawford, Tray Cook, Nyze Byrd, Zay Johnson, and Jayden Robinson.
Fountain said “records go out the window” when rivals Clinton and Laurens meet as they did this past Friday at KC Hanna Stadium.
The Raiders Head Coach Daryl Smith said the team had moved on from a season-opening loss to Hillcrest, made corrections and now is looking forward to the rest of the season. “I’ve been involved in rivalries all over the state ... and there is no rivalry game more exciting than this one,” he said of Clinton-Laurens.
Improving the Raiders numbers this season, Laurens is able to have more guys contribute and have no players going both ways - playing offense and defense.
The next Laurens County Touchdown Club meeting will be Sept. 7 at The Ridge with PC Football Head Coach Steve Englehart as the guest speaker. The PC mentor was speaking at the Greer Touchdown Club Thursday to represent Presbyterian College and its home, Laurens County.
