Cornelius happy with East Clarendon’s start

By Dennis Brunson

hssr.com Associate Editor

Turbeville – The East Clarendon High School athletic program is making its second foray in school history into the AA classification. It’s been so far, so good for the football program, according to head coach Larry Cornelius.

“I feel like we’re in a good spot right now,” said Cornelius, whose team was off to a 4-2 overall start and was 1-1 in Region 7. “We lost to Manning (15-12) on special teams play. We’ve been very competitive, competitive in all of our games. We’re still trying to take it one game at a time.”

East Clarendon moved up from Class A after the South Carolina High School League’s biannual reclassification. It became a member of Region 7 with Manning and Lake City, who came down from AAA, AA holdovers Kingstree, Marion and Mullins and SCHSL newcomer Atlantic Collegiate Academy.

East Clarendon opened region play against the two former AAA schools, Lake City and Manning. The Wolverines topped Lake City 28-12 before falling to Clarendon County School District rival Manning. The Monarchs won the game on a 68-yard punt return for a touchdown by Jeffery Ceasar with 5:55 remaining in the game.

East Clarendon was off on October 4. It was to play host to Kingstree on October 11 before traveling to Mullins on October 18. It is scheduled to play at home against ACA on October 25 before closing the regular season at Marion on November 1.

The Wolverines returned 10 of 11 starters on defense, and it hasn’t disappointed.

“I thought our run defense would be good and we've proven that case to be the case,” said Cornelius, who led East Clarendon to a 5-6 record and its first playoff victory in years last season. “We’ve only had one game where they ran the ball good on us (a 21-20 loss to Lakewood). The surprise for me is the play of our pass defense. That was a problem last year, we’re allowing around 50 yards a game in that area.”