WEDNESDAY SPORTS: Bobcats hire Cathcart

Seneca High School has hired Greenwood’s Gene Cathcart to be its next football coach. Athletic Director Duke Lee says the community is invited to a meet and greet at 4:30 PM Wednesday for the coach’s introduction. It will be held in the Seneca High Media Center. Before Greenwood, Cathcart coached at Habersham Central in Georgia. He worked as as assistant at Manning, Pickens, and Daniel High Schools and spent time on the staff at Presbyterian College.

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In high school basketball Tuesday, the Walhalla boy’s won with a 66-63 victory over the Daniel Lions. Darian Rogers led the Razorbacks with 19 points. Tamassee-Salem’s boys defeated Dixie 67-53. Tyler Murphy led with 18 points. Seneca’s boys downed West-Oak 86-45. Malik Cobb scored 21 points for the Cats. Elsewhere, West-Oak’s girls win over Seneca 59-48. Haley Tyler led all scorers with 25 points. Dixie’s girls defeated Tamassee-Salem 53-42. Daniel’s girls were winners over Walhalla 76-36.

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Pittsburgh had an 11-0 run after Clemson scored the first basket and never looked back in a 76-43 win over the Tigers on Tuesday at Petersen Events Center. The 33-point margin of defeat was Clemson’s worst since a 78-41 loss at Virginia last season. The 19th-ranked Panthers improves to 17-2 overall and 5-1 in the ACC with the victory.

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South Carolina searches for its first SEC victory of the season when it travels to Georgia on Wednesday for a mid-week matchup on the road with the Bulldogs. UGA has won three straight games in the series and has won the last four in Athens. Tip-off is 8:00 PM at Stegeman Coliseum.

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A new contest from Quicken Loans is offering $1 billion to anyone who completes a perfect bracket in this year’s “March Madness” NCAA men’s college basketball championship tournament, with Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway insuring the prize. What are the odds of winning? USA Today reported recently that the chance of completing a perfect bracket is 1 in 9.2 quintillion — with Mashable.com saying that means if everyone in the U.S. filled out a bracket, there would be a perfect one every 400 years. There will be some other prizes handed out, however, with 20 $100,000 awards given out for the most accurate brackets.

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South Carolina junior catcher Grayson Greiner earned Second-Team Preseason All-America honors from Perfect Game. This marks Greiner’s second preseason accolade, as he earned Second-Team Preseason All-America honors from Collegiate Baseball as well.

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Several angry baseball players wanted Alex Rodriguez kicked out of their union after he sued it last week, according to reports Tuesday, but staff lawyers told them it wasn’t possible to do it. A-Rod not only sued Major League Baseball to try to overturn an arbitrator’s decision suspending him for all of next season, but sued the players’ union as well, saying it, quote, “breached its duty of fair representation” of him. After Rodriguez’ initial suspension by Commissioner Bud Selig for 211 games, the union filed a grievance charging that the discipline was without just cause.

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Two-time defending champion Victoria Azarenka was upset at the Australian Open on Wednesday, the second-seeded Belarusian losing 6-1, 5-7, 6-0 to fifth-seeded Agnieszka Radwanska of Poland in the quarterfinals. Radwanska will face off in the semifinals against 20th-seeded Dominika Cibulkova of Slovakia, who defeated Number 11-seeded Romanian Simona Halep 6-3, 6-0 in her quarterfinal match. The defending champion on the men’s side is also out, after second-seeded Novak Djokovic lost in five sets in the quarterfinals to Number 8-seeded Stan Wawrinka on Tuesday night. Top-seeded Rafael Nadal advanced to the semis after defeating 22nd-seeded Grigor Dimitrov of Bulgaria.