There are six players for the Cedar Ridge Red Wolves were started during last June’s game against Orange. None of them need to be reminded of what happened in order to be properly motivated for tonight’s matchup against their crosstown rivals.
It has been stuck in their minds for ten months. It’s something they couldn’t possibly forget, no matter how hard they try.
On the night of June 11, the Red Wolves thoroughly outplayed the Panthers. In a game that started on May 28 but was suspended due to rain and resumed two weeks later, Cedar Ridge led Orange 6-2 at Red Wolves Territory going into the seventh inning. The Panthers’ offense had been anemic, limited to five hits through six innings. On top of that, Cedar Ridge appeared ready to hand the Panthers’ top pitcher, Ryan Hench, his first loss of the season. Hench, who was 2-0 on the year, had not given up an earned run through his first four starts. The Red Wolves ran up six earned runs on Hench in four-plus innings.
Cedar Ridge had not beaten Orange since 2018. It appeared the seventh inning would be a mere formality. The Panthers hadn’t strung together consecutive hits the entire game.
Then Tyler Lloyd led off with a single. Jackson Berini walked. Davis Horton lined a double to left field to score Lloyd. Things inside Cedar Ridge ballpark went from uncomfortable to stifling to outright panic. After Will Walker popped out to first base, things calmed down somewhat. There were two outs and Cedar Ridge still led 6-3. Orange’s last hope, Conner Funk, swung and missed at his opening two pitches, meaning the Red Wolves were a strike away from winning. Funk fouled off two more potential strike threes in a 9-pitch at-bat, which ended with a walk to load the bases. Hench, who remained in the game as a designated hitter after being replaced as pitcher by Jordan Underwood, sent a double to left field to score Berini and courtesy runner Jacob Jones to trim Cedar Ridge’s lead to 6-5. Funk would eventually score after Jaren Sikes drew a bases-loaded walk to incredibly tie the game. Lloyd, in his second at-bat of the inning, delivered the game-winning hit with a two-run single to left field to put the Panthers in the lead 8-6. Orange would go on to score eleven runs in the seventh inning and win 13-6.
Amidst the surreal scene afterwards, the pain that was left on catcher Tucker Cothan’s face stood out. Cothran was a senior that had never beaten Orange before at the varsity level. His junior year had been wiped away because of the pandemic. Was it asking too much to finally beat Orange with a 4-run lead in the 7th inning? When the Panthers were down to their last strike?
Twice?
The emotions on both sides were thick afterwards and Orange bid a hasty farewell on the team bus back across town.
Keep in mind that there were no championship implications on that summer night. Orange had already secured to a trip to the paired-down state playoffs. Cedar Ridge, who knew going into the game they would miss the postseason, simply wanted to beat their crosstown rivals.
Tonight, when the teams start a two-game series at Cedar Ridge, there are title implications galore.
Orange leads the Central Carolina Conference with a 7-1 record. Cedar Ridge, which has won six in a row, is in second place at 6-3.
The Panthers are searching for its first conference championship since 2016 when current Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher Bryse Wilson was a senior. In order to eliminate the Red Wolves from championship contention, the Panthers simply need to win one game in the series (the second game is Thursday night at Orange).
Cedar Ridge can clinch a share of the regular season championship and the #1 seed for the Central Carolina Conference Tournament with a sweep of Orange. Under that scenario, even if Orange sweeps Eastern Alamance next week, the Red Wolves would control the tiebreaker over the Panthers.
This series marks the final two games of the conference season for the Red Wolves.
Cedar Ridge last won a conference championship in baseball in 2007 when current Athletic Director Andy Simmons coached the team. Since becoming a 3A school in 2014, the Red Wolves haven’t won a league title. They last made the playoffs in 2018, the final season of Jamie Athas’ stint as head coach.
Both Orange and Cedar Ridge have had several first-year varsity players make strong first impressions. Red Wolf sophomore catcher Efrain Morales made an immediate impact on opening night when he scored the game-winning run in the 8th inning in a 9-8 win over Chapel Hill. Morales went 2-for-4 in his first varsity game and has nine multi-hit games this season. Last week, Morales had a grand slam in a 4-1 victory over Western Alamance in Elon.
For Orange, sophomore Cross Clayton has been the most improved player since the season started with a 4-1 win over Northern Durham on February 28. Clayton, in his first varsity season, leads the team with four wins. He has tossed 13 consecutive scoreless innings. On Friday, Clayton threw a two-hit shutout in Orange’s 5-0 win at Northwood, no small feat considering that the Ronald Horton Baseball Complex is a hitter’s park.
Cedar Ridge freshman pitcher Quinn Finnegan is 4-1 after he threw four innings in the win at Western Alamance last Tuesday. Finnegan won the first varsity game he ever pitched in against Chapel Hill on March 2. Since then, he’s beaten Kernersville Glenn in High Point and earned a dramatic victory over Eastern Alamance when the Red Wolves scored eight runs in the second inning and held on to win 8-7 to complete a doubleheader sweep in Mebane on April 8.
Hench will likely start for the Panthers tonight in a series that has every ingredient imaginable for one spicy dish.
Championships. A crosstown rivalry. And, in the case of Cedar Ridge, possible redemption.