Hanahan

The North Charleston All-stars defeated Hanahan, 4-1, to clinch the 2021 S.C. Dixie Softball Ponytails (ages 11-12) District 6 championship on June 18.

All-star teams representing Moncks Corner, Goose Creek, Hanahan and North Charleston competed in the district tournament June 14-18 at the Wescott Park ball fields. North Charleston advanced to the final of the double elimination tournament undefeated. After losing on opening day, Hanahan battled back by defeating Moncks Corner on the second day and Goose Creek the third to advance to the final.

“We faced great competition, but we just played lights out,” North Charleston manager Joe Brinson said. “I’m so proud of these girls. In the first game against Hanahan we were up and down until we tied it up and then in the last inning we came through strong with a couple of hits to score the winning run.”

In the title game, Hanahan went up by a run in the top of the first inning. North Charleston answered in the bottom of the frame with three straight hits off the bats of Lennea Morlando, Morgan Carter and Lily Brinson to bring Morlando home, and an RBI single from Kamryn Wickersham that plated Carter.

After her team gained the 2-1 lead, Brinson found her grove in the circle and North Charleston played strong defense the remaining innings.

North Charleston added a run in the second. Alyssa Owens received a base on balls and then scored off a hit by Elizabeth Martray. The final run came in the fourth when Kamari Davis stole home for the 4-1 North Charleston lead.

Ja’Niyah Ray, Ava Harkleroad, Kalynn Butler and Kylie Leon-Jennings are the other members of the District 6 championship team. Chris Carter and Tim Harkleroad are the team’s assistant coaches.

The all-stars advance to the Ponytails State Tournament next month in Johnsonville. Joe Brinson is hoping pitching depth will give them an edge there.

“We have several pitchers this year, which is great,” he said. “We can just let a girl take it and see how far she can go knowing if we need it we have someone else who can step up and finish.”

Wescott Park is also hosting this summer’s Dixie Youth Baseball AAA Minors (9-10) tournament June 17-22. The tournament features teams from North Charleston, Summerville, Moncks Corner, Hanahan, Goose Creek, St. Andrews and Mount Pleasant.

It’s an established fact that rising sea levels will affect the supply of fresh groundwater along the South Carolina coast — it already has, especially in some shallower, private wells east of U.S. Highway 17.

What’s less clear is how close the state is to a dangerous tipping point, where many of its underground aquifers — empty spaces and cracks deep in the soil and above impermeable layers of rock — will become so tainted with intruding salt that they no longer can serve as sources of drinking water without expensive treatment.

As Chloe Johnson reports today, utilities on and around Hilton Head Island already are grappling with the intrusion of salt into their aquifer, and one has taken the novel step of injecting a few hundred million gallons of fresh water from the Savannah River into the ground to help meet its peak demands. Combatting the problem has required utilities in Beaufort County to make other expensive, long-term plans beyond pumping in river water. Some have drilled ever deeper into the Middle Floridan aquifer, whose water is lightly salty and needs filtering through a reverse osmosis plant. One has even sunk a costly well almost 4,000 feet into a 65-million-year-old underground layer to shoot 118-degree water to the surface.

Charleston is not immune from the growing threat to our aquifers.

It’s true that our region currently gets most of its drinking water from the surface, including reservoirs fed by freshwater rivers flowing toward the coast. But Mount Pleasant and a few smaller beach communities have wells from which they draw water from the Middendorf Aquifer. When those wells prove problematic, they have to buy more water from the Charleston Water System, which currently uses only about two-thirds of the 115 million gallons a day its Hanahan Treatment Plant can produce.

“Fortunately, we have ample capacity right now, though we continue to monitor that very closely,” Kin Hill, the water system CEO, said. Still, “we have to stay a decade or so ahead of the demand. You can’t be caught short when Mother Nature delivers something to you.”

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Mount Pleasant is appropriately concerned enough about the situation that it engaged in a high-stakes battle with state regulators and Google over the company’s request to pump up to 549 million gallons of water per year from an aquifer to cool the servers at its Berkeley County data center.

The agency in charge of regulating South Carolina’s groundwater supplies, the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control, has had a study in the works on how ocean salt will continue to permeate underground supplies in Beaufort County, including a mathematical model that would predict how much salt intrusion would occur with different levels of rising seas. It’s expected to release a paper soon that projects salt migration in the coming decades, though no release date is set. We urge the agency to finish its review and make it public soon. There’s little time to waste, especially given the long lead times utilities need to plan, finance and build.

The strain on coastal aquifers comes from more than the salt and rising seas; the coastal population boom also puts more demands on withdrawing water. If too much is taken out, a utility can create a so-called “cone of depression,” or lower groundwater level, that poses a different type of problem. Fortunately, Beaufort utility managers have taken commonsense steps to reduce demand, including using treated wastewater to irrigate golf courses. But coastal utilities must continue to press for water conservation as a key piece in solving this puzzle — and all of us need to start giving more thought to how we use this precious resource.

The problem is going to become more challenging, especially with seas projected to rise by 1-4 feet by the end of the century. It’s something that eventually will affect us all, yet as hydrogeologist Chris Foldesi told Ms. Johnson: “I rarely hear folks talking about (sea level rise) in terms of water withdrawal planning and those types of things.”

The sooner we understand and make better plans for those effects, the less chance we will leave future generations high and dry — or too salty.

Dabria Aguilar is the new Miss South Carolina Teen.

She was crowned Friday night at a packed Township Auditorium by Miss South Carolina Teen Kellan Fenegan 2019, who represented Columbia. Fenegan served for two years because COVID caused the 2020 contest to be canceled.

At the start of the show, 15 contestants were selected by the judges as semi-finalists from the 35 competing. Piedmont Teen Piper Holt joined the group as the People’s Choice winner based on online votes.

Judges selected the top 10 after the fitness competition, and after talent performances, the top five were announced.

First runner up was Georgetown County Teen Hannah Young, second runner up Clemson Teen Reilly Ray, third runner up Greer High Teen Ella Kate Brannon and fourth runner up Spartanburg Teen Messiah Moring.

Aguilar, 17, performed a contemporary ballet and also had the highest talent score of all the contestants. She is from Hanahan and attends Hanahan High School.

Aguilar wants to focus on special education. She said she hopes to visit every special education classroom in the state to help enhance students’ self confidence and self love.

Aguilar will go to the Miss Outstanding Teen competition in Orlando, which begins with preliminary competitions July 28.

Winners in the three nights of preliminary competitions were Aguilar, Dorchester County Teen Muskaan Makkar, Clarendon County Teen Nicole Herrera, Clemson Teen Reilly Ray, Georgetown County Teen Hannah Young and Spartanburg Teen Messiah Moring.

Fenegen, who graduated this year from high school, will enroll at Clemson University in August and plans to study genetics. She said in an interview on the Jack and Megan show last fall she may decide to compete in the Miss South Carolina pageant. She was in the top 10 at Miss Outstanding Teen and had the highest GPA. She began her involvement with Miss South Carolina as a princess.

As Miss South Carolina Teen, Fenegen spent the past two years working to provide needed items for kids in foster care through her Kellan’s Kloset organization. She announced Friday night that the organization has now gone international. It is in 14 state and Three countries., she said.

“I wouldn’t have had the courage without the Miss South Carolina organization,” she said. “I am incredibly grateful.”

The other in the Top 10 were Florence Teen Alexandra Hamilton, Green Wave Teen Ansley Cook, Piedmont Teen Piper Holt, South Florence High School Teen Constance Mixon, Upstate Teen Belle Pitts.

Semi-finalists in the Top 16 included Clarendon Teen Nicole Herrera, Dorchester County Teen, Muskaan Makkar, Garden City Teen Ashley O’Connor, Inman Teen Emma Cook, Palmetto Teen Abby Scruggs, Greater Greer Teen Kelsey Pranke.

Next up is crowning a new Miss South Carolina. That program begins at 8 p.m. Saturday at Township Auditorium and will be televised by WACH Fox television station in Columbia and other Sinclair stations around the state. Those are WCIV in Charleston, WPDE in Florence-Myrtle Beach and WLOS in Greenville-Spartanburg-Anderson.

The Miss SC finale also will be live streamed on the Miss South Carolina website at a cost of $29.95.

Miss South Carolina 2019 Morgan Nichols served for two years and plans to attend Johns Hopkins University to earn master’s degrees in biotechnology and business. She was a genetics major at Clemson University.

Her platform was to further STEM education in South Carolina. STEM stands for science, technology, engineering, and math.

Preliminary winners for Miss South Carolina are Miss Clemson Anna Newton, Miss Greater Greer Jada Samuel, Miss Lander University Kara Love, Miss Midlands Emily Wakeman and Miss Sparkle City C.J. McDermott.

Newton won for her talent and evening wear/social impact statement, which is connecting first responders with community members to learn their needs.

Fifteen finalists and one People’s Choice winner will be announced Saturday to compete during the program.

Miss South Carolina 2021 will go to the Miss America competition in December in Connecticut.

HANAHAN, S.C. (WCBD) – A new multi-use park is being constructed in Hanahan. It comes after more than 75% of voters approved a bond referendum for the project back in November.

The brand new 53-acre park is located next to Bowen’s Corner Elementary and will serve several purposes in the Hanahan community.

“We are just so excited about this new park,” said Hanahan Mayor Christie Rainwater. “When the federal government partnered with us and donated the land, it had to be used for parks and rec. It was exactly what the city of Hanahan needed.”

The last time Hanahan opened new ballfields there were only 13,700 people in the town. Now, about 29,000 call Hanahan home.

“There will be tennis courts, an artificial turf field, ballfields, a dog park, fishing pond, picnic spaces – you name it,” said Mayor Rainwater. “Everything that you would love to see in a park will be here.”

The project will cost more than $11 million. The Berkeley County School District agreed to pay nearly $1 million for artificial turf on a field so that it could be used as a practice field.

“We will partner with them to make sure they now have the things they need to play their sports,” the mayor said.

Berkeley County Supervisor Johnny Cribb said Hanahan has been working on the project for some time, even during the full ten years he was town administrator.

“It’s critical because it’s a quality-of-life project,” he said. “If you’re going to be a vibrant city, a vibrant community, people are looking for parks and recreation- do you want to draw in young families, do you want to be able to keep the families that you’ve drawn in?”

Bryce Florie grew up in Hanahan and has coached kids in the area, He said this is a great project.

“Just the way the community has grown and the need for it- it’s so important and the way the city came together… it’s a good place for everyone,” he said.

Mayor Rainwater hopes to have the park finished a year from now. The park has not yet been named.

CHARLESTON, S.C. - The Charleston Baseball Hall of Fame’s advisory committee has released its candidates for the Class of 2021, and enshrinement will be conducted by voting from local fans. The Charleston RiverDogs will host an online vote on their website beginning today and in-stadium voting during the team’s upcoming homestand July 27-August 8. Voting is limited to 5 total votes per participant.

The Committee also announced that fan-voting will select the two individuals that collect the most votes while the committee may vote in one additional member. Fans can click here to vote on the official ballot or visit riverdogs.com to place their vote.

Voting will conclude on Sunday, August 8 at 8:00 p.m. The individuals with the most votes will be inducted prior to the August 22nd RiverDogs’ home game against the Columbia Fireflies.

The Charleston Baseball Hall of Fame is coordinated and operated by the Charleston RiverDogs. An advisory committee consisting of knowledgeable local volunteers was created to cultivate names as potential nominees. The Hall of Fame is located inside Joseph P. Riley, Jr. Park.

The finalists, in alphabetical order, for the Class of 2021.

Steve Arrington (Player) - A Lowcountry native, Steve Arrington was a right fielder/pitcher who was the 1973 Southern Conference baseball player of the year as he led the league in strikeouts (93 in 65 innings), home runs (6) and RBI (28). Named to the South Carolina College Coaches All-Star team at both positions, Arrington was a member of the 1971 SoCon Championship team (22-9) under Coach Chal Port. He had a pair of one-hitters, and held the school single-season record for total strikeouts (213 in 196 innings in 1973), complete games (8 in 1972), and shutouts (3 in 1971), and was second in ERA (0.96 in 1973). After graduation, he spent nearly 30 years in the U.S. Air Force in worldwide assignments, and attained the rank of full colonel. He was enshrined in The Citadel Athletic Hall of Fame in 2017. Resides in Hanahan, SC.

Rhame B. “Chip” Cannon (Player) - Hailing from North Charleston, the versatile first baseman/pitcher earned All-America honors from Baseball America in 2004 prior to being drafted in the eighth round by the Toronto Blue Jays. He was an All-Southern Conference selection in 2003 and ’04, and Baseball America listed him among the best pro prospects in the league while also labeling him with “the best raw power” in the SoCon. He played on two Southern Conference championship teams and made a pair of NCAA Regional appearances. After his graduation in 2004, Cannon was second all-time in school history with 40 home runs and his three grand slams were tops in the league that year. Cannon walked 156 times, recorded 169 RBI and tallied 399 total bases, all of which ranked him among the school’s all-time leaders. Pitching in the weekend rotation, he won eight contests in 28 appearances and posted a 4.00 ERA. He had three complete games and fanned 107 batters in 153 innings. Enshrined in The Citadel Athletic Hall of Fame in 2013.

Ralph Ciabattari (Coach)- Ralph Ciabattari’s served as head baseball coach at Charleston Southern (then Baptist College from 1983-88) and College of Charleston (1991-99) for 15 seasons and finished with a 378-311-2 overall record. During his tenure at CSU, Ciabattari posted a 163-94 record including wins over nationally-ranked South Carolina and North Carolina. Ciabattari led the Cougars to a 22-12-1 record in 1991, the program’s first season since 1948, and 215 overall wins (215-217-2). As a member of the Trans America Athletic Conference (TAAC) from 1992-98, Ciabattari’s teams competed against some of the nation’s top programs. He led the College of Charleston into Southern Conference play in 1999 and helped them to a 31-24 overall record, 19-10 league mark and a second -place SoCon regular season finish. His record at College of Charleston included wins over South Carolina, North Carolina State, Michigan State, Boston College, Seton Hall and a 3-0 win at top-ranked Florida State on March 8, 1994. While at CofC, he coached 12 all-conference honorees, one All-American and four Academic All-Americans. The Bugettstown, Pa., native attended Burgettstown High School before earning his bachelor’s degree from Charleston Southern in 1977. He was a four-year letter winner at third base for the Buccaneers from 1973-77. He began his coaching career as an assistant under Charleston Southern head coach Bill Bustle in 1982.

Oscar Fordham (Coach) – Oscar Fordham began working for the City of Charleston Department of Recreation in 1960 as a playground leader in the downtown area. Mr. Fordham served as a youth sports coach for thousands of children during his 61 (and counting) work history. Many of those years were spent at Harmon Park on fields that are now named in his honor and he still works today at McMahon Playground Hampton Park). Mr. Fordham was a wonderful coach and teacher and always had youth teams in baseball as well as football and basketball. Mr. Fordham has retired twice from the city but has come back to work because he loves it and he loves working with young people as a sport baseball coach.

Augustus “Gus” Jimmy Holt (Coach/Organizer/ Historian) - Gus Holt spent the last 25 plus years bringing attention to the Cannon Street All-Stars, an all-black youth baseball team from the 1950s.who shed a national spotlight on an African American Little League baseball team from Charleston, He was a tireless advocate for youth baseball. In 1994, Augustus Holt succeeded in bringing Little League back to Charleston. Holt became president of the Charleston American Little League, overseeing the sports program and organizing a celebration of the fortieth anniversary of the Cannon Street YMCA All-Stars baseball team.

Bo Parks (Player) – A Summerville baseball standout, Parks was inducted into the Dorchester School District 2 Hall of Fame in 2000. He played on Summerville’s 1978 and 1979 state championship baseball and football teams. On the mound, he posted a 56-6 career record, with seven no-hitters and also holds the state record for consecutive wins in a season with a 16-0 record in 1979. In the all-time state rankings, Parks is tied for third in consecutive shutouts (4), fifth in consecutive wins (20) and tied for second in single-game strikeouts (20).