CLINTON–Fairfield Central’s drive to reach a state championship game for the first time in 27 years fell one game short.
The Griffins, who won 12 straight games after a season-opening loss to 5A Ridge View, fell 32-21 to Clinton Friday night at the Red Devils’ Wilder Stadium.
“If you would have told me back in May that we would have made it to the upper state championship, I would’ve looked at you like you was crazy,” 14-year head coach Demetrius Davis said about his team’s surprise year in which the Griffins caught fire early and outscored opponents 587-199 going into the Clinton game.
“This team played like heck. This defense played, and let me tell you, man, I’m super proud of these kids,” Davis added.
Senior running back and Shrine Bowl pick Ty’Darion Grier, who had 1,983 rushing yards and 35 touchdowns going into Friday, led Fairfield Central with 212 yards and two touchdowns on 24 carries. Quarterback Kaden Diggs, who had 655 passing yards and 607 rushing yards before Friday, had a 19-yard touchdown run and 76 yards on13 carries.
The Griffins, who won back-to-back 3A state championships in 1996-1997 and reached the upper state championship in 2012, closed out the 2024 season fighting hard against a team that had a three-headed rushing attack.
The Red Devils rushed for 320 yards and passed for 104. Rhett Gilliam led the way with 109 yards and a touchdown on 14 carries. Javen Cook had 17 carries for 101 yards.
Quarterback Tushawan Richardson had eight carries for 102 yards and a touchdown, in addition to throwing touchdown passes to D.J. Clark and Devin Swindler.
The Red Devils’ win puts them in their first state championship game since 2009, when Clinton beat Myrtle Beach 35-26 to win the 3A state championship that year.
“It was an awesome job, our kids, our fans,” Clinton head coach Corey Fountain said. “We talked about who’s going to want it more. It was 32 degrees at the start of this game, you’ve got to have some grit, you’ve got to have great effort and toughness, and the game of football will reward you for that.”
Coach Fountain, who won two state titles at Lamar before taking over at Clinton in 2019, led the Red Devils to an upper state championship appearance in 2022.
Clinton took the opening kickoff and went straight to work, moving the ball from midfield to set up Richardson’s 22 touchdown pass to D.J. Clark.
The Red Devils bottled up Fairfield Central for most of the first half. The Griffins finally put a drive together on the strength of Grier runs, his last one being a 28-yarder untouched to the end zone at the 4:58 mark of the second.
The game was tied at 7 until Clinton went on a short drive and scored on Richardson’s 1-yard TD run with 1:10 to go in the half. Up 13-7, Clinton caught a huge break on the kickoff that followed.
Fairfield Central returned the ball to the 23-yard line before the ball carrier took a hit that jarred the ball loose at that mark. Defensive back Austin Boyd scooped up the ball and ran it back to the end zone to give the Red Devils a 19-7 lead with 59 seconds to go in the half, a lead they took into intermission.
Fairfield Central opened the second half on offense, but ran into Boyd again, this time Boyd picked off one of Diggs’ few pass attempts on the night.
“That’s a great football team over there,” Davis said. “You can’t come into this place and turn the ball over and do some of the things we did and expect to win. We ain’t that good of a football team.”
That pick didn’t bother the Griffins, who stopped the Red Devils on that possession, then drove 56 yards on nine rushing plays. Diggs capped the drive with a 19-yard TD scamper at the 3:29 mark of the third to make it 19-14 Clinton.
Richardson’s 7-yard touchdown run six seconds into the fourth quarter put the Red Devils up 25-14, a 2-possession lead that lasted all of two minutes.
Grier’s 38-yard run put Fairfield Central at the Clinton 1-yard line, and Grier pushed through for the Griffins’ final score with 9:49 left. Down 25-21, all they needed was for the defense to stop Clinton’s rushing attack.
Fairfield Central succeeded at tying up the Red Devils midway through the fourth quarter—almost. With Clinton facing a fourth-and-10 at the Fairfield Central 17, the Red Devils opted for the death blow rather than a field goal.
Richardson took the snap and found Devin Swindler on the run. Swindler finished that catch-and-run with Clinton’s final score with 6:33 to go.
“We couldn’t get a turnover, and we couldn’t get off the field when we needed to get off the field,” Davis said about his team’s defensive struggles. “Kudos for coach (Fountain) right there on fourth and 10. If we could’ve stopped them, we could’ve won the game. They went for it and scored and that’s what won the football game.”
After that score the Griffins went from their own 23-yard line to the Red Devils 33 before Clinton’s defense stiffened. Diggs threw two incompletions to the right corner of the end zone on third and fourth down, and Fairfield Central turned the ball over on downs with 3:06 left.
Clinton drained the clock and clinched the upper state championship with two first downs and a possession that went to the Griffins’ 3-yard line by the time the clock ran out.
Now Clinton sets its sights for Orangeburg, where they will take on Barnwell for the 2A state championship. The Warhorses (13-1) stopped Manning 37-14 Friday night to reach the final game at South Carolina State’s Oliver C. Dawson Stadium Thursday at 2 p.m.
“We’ve got a hell of a ball club, and we’ve got a group of guys that play together as a team,” Fountain said of getting ready for the championship game. “It’s business as usual. You’ve got to prepare for this game like any other game. It’s a short week, so we’re going to have to get it going Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and hopefully we’ll be able to come in early and do our walk-through that we normally do on Thursday, and take off for Orangeburg.”
The Griffins wrap up a season that ended with a letdown, but was full of success thanks to the seniors, Coach Davis said.
“They’re very special. My son’s one of them (quarterback Ford Davis, who passed for 517 yards and six TDs on the year). This group is special,” Coach Davis said. “I’ll be honest. When we lost (to Dillon in the 2A lower state championship) back in 2012 my son was 5 years old at the time and I was thinking ‘what if I could win this thing with my son.’ It didn’t quite work out that way, but I wouldn’t trade none of this for anything. This team right here is a special football team.”
Davis, a Winnsboro native who played quarterback under Buddy Pough when the retired South Carolina State head coach roamed the sidelines at E.K. McLendon Stadium as the head man of the Griffins, notes that while the team didn’t reach the big game, Fairfield Central energized Winnsboro in the same way that Pough’s state championship team did in 1996 and Tony Felder’s team did in 1997.
“It’s a community thing. This is the first time we’ve played in this game in 12 years,” Davis said. “It brings the community together. Being from Winnsboro and being a hometown guy, that’s what I want to do. I want to be able to bring some joy and some excitement to Winnsboro. We’ll have our day. Today wasn’t it but we’ll have our day.”
Fairfield Central – 0-7-7-7 – 21
Clinton – 7-12-0-13 – 32
First Quarter
C – D.J. Clark 22 pass from Tushawan Richardson (Lukas Kuykendall kick) 11:19
Second Quarter
F – Ty’Darion Grier 28 run (Erik Martinez kick) 4:58
C – Richardson 1 run (run failed) 1:10
C – Austin Boyd 23 fumble return (run failed) :59
Third Quarter
F – Kaden Diggs 19 run (Martinez kick) 3:21
Fourth Quarter
C – Richardson 7 run (run failed) 11:54
F – Grier 1 run (Martinez kick) 9:49
C – Devin Swindler 17 pass from Richardson (Kuykendall kick) 6:33
FCHS CHS
First downs 16 15
Rushes-yds 40-304 43-320
Passing yds 81 104
Att-Com-Int 8-3-1 5-3-0
Fumbles-lost 1-1 0-0
Penalties-yds 12-71 10-90
Punts-avg 2-34.0 2-40.0
INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS
RUSHING:
F – Ty’Derion Grier 22-212, Kaden Diggs 12-76, Kingston Peay 1-3, Team 2-13. C – Javen Cook 17-101, Rhett Gilliam 14-109, Tushawan Richardson 8-102, D.J. Clark 3-3, Angelo Cromer 1-5.
PASSING:
F – Kaden Diggs 3-8-1. C – Tushawan Richardson 3-5-0.
RECEIVING:
F – Jayden Boyd 2-41, Ty’Derion Grier 1-40. C – Devin Swindler 2-82, D.J. Clark 1-22.
