FRIDAY SPORTS: Season ends for Oconee basketball teams

In high school basketball playoffs on Thursday, the Greenville Red Raiders put an end to the season for Seneca’s boys with a 57-51 win. Walhalla’s boys fell on the road at Traveler’s Rest 65-53. Elsewhere the Tamassee-Salem girls saw their season come to a close with a 74-24 loss to Christ Church. The TS boy’s team fell to St. Joseph’s 76-46 to end the season.

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Karl Cochran scored 16 of his game-high 23 points in the first half and Wofford used a 20-0 run in the opening period to down Furman, 70-50, in Southern Conference men’s basketball action on Thursday night at Benjamin Johnson Arena in Spartanburg. The loss dropped Furman to 8-18 overall and 2-11 in SoCon play.

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The Clemson men will take on Georgia Tech in ACC play Saturday. Tip-off at the McCamish Pavilion in Atlanta is 12:00 PM.

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Clemson baseball opens a weekend series Friday against Maine, the alma mater of head coach Jack Leggett. First pitch in the series is 4:00 PM.

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South Carolina (4-0) opens a three-game series on Friday vs. Eastern Kentucky (1-3) at Carolina Stadium. Friday’s opener is set for 3 p.m. with Saturday scheduled for 4 p.m. and Sunday’s series finale at 1:30 p.m. South Carolina is ranked No. 5 by Baseball America.

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Off to solid start on the young 2014 season, Furman will look to continue the momentum when it opens a three-game weekend series against Virginia Commonwealth University beginning with a 4:00 p.m. Friday afternoon contest at Latham Stadium. Furman (3-1) and VCU (3-1) will also play Saturday at 4:00 p.m., and first pitch for Sunday’s finale is set for 1:00 p.m.

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The defending Southern Conference champion Furman Paladins will kick off spring practice on Tuesday, Mar. 18, head coach Bruce Fowler has announced. Furman’s first practice is scheduled to begin at 4:30 p.m. on the Bob King practice fields.

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Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia:

Canada won the women’s hockey gold medal for the fourth consecutive Olympics with an unbelievable rally from a two-goal deficit against the Americans in the final three-and-a-half minutes of regulation to tie the game, with the last goal coming with just 54 seconds left, sending it to overtime, where they got the win, 3-2.

American Maddie Bowman won the gold medal in the new Olympic sport of ski halfpipe.

France swept the men’s skicross competition, taking gold, silver and bronze, marking the sixth podium sweep in Sochi for a new Winter Olympics record.

The U.S. is in first place with 25 medals overall — 8 gold, 6 silver and 11 bronze — ahead of Russia in second place with 23 and the Netherlands in third with 22.