Orange Men’s Lacrosse

Tonight is the night that the Orange lacrosse team has been waiting three months for. It’s the start of the 3A/2A/1A State Playoffs at Auman Stadium. The Panthers are the #1 seed in the East Region for the third straight year and will face Southern Alamance at 6PM at Auman Stadium. This year, the Panthers have had nine players score at least ten goals. Sophomore Brett Clark has scored 52 goals in his sophomore season, second on the team. He ended the regular season with five consecutive games with hat tricks, including five goals against Eastern Alamance on April 19. His season-high is six goals against Seaforth on April 9. Junior Gray Crabtree has scored 32 goals, including seven goals against Southern Alamance on April 22. He has five hat tricks this season. This Orange team has set a school record with 355 goals. They won the Mid-Piedmont Conference championship for the fourth consecutive year. As long as the Panthers keep winning in the state playoffs, they will continue to have home games. The Panthers swept the season series from the Patriots, winning 18-5 on March 25 and 20-1 on April 22 in Hillsborough. If Orange wins tonight, they will meet the winner of Seaforth vs. Western Alamance in the round of 16 next week.

Photo from Hilltopperlax.com

Since February, Connor Kruse’s farewell tour at Orange has consisted of him breaking or tying national and school records.

In his final regular season game, Kruse permanently etched his name in the North Carolina lacrosse record books.

On Friday night, Kruse broke the record for most career points by a player in North Carolina history. Kruse assisted for his fifth point of the game in the Panthers 14-3 win over Northwood in Pittsboro. It was his 505th career point, breaking the record held by Middle Creek’s Owen Caputo, who went on to play five seasons at Duke, reaching the Final Four twice.

Orange’s victory over the Chargers concluded an undefeated run to the Mid-Piedmont Conference championship, its fourth consecutive title. The Panthers also swept the season series from the Chargers, the defending 3A/2A/1A Eastern Regional champions.

Kruse holds virtually every offensive record in the Panther record book since he started playing during the pandemic-shortened season in 2021, which was the first great team in Orange lacrosse history. A year after playing in the final athletic event in the history of Stanford Middle School before it was renamed, Kruse played on the first unit alongside Ryan Merrill, Cy Horner and Caleb Davis. Facing Northwood in the round of 16 in the state playoffs, Kruse scored the game-winning goal as a freshman with 5:27 remaining in the fourth quarter off a feed from Horner, who now plays at Methodist University. It was the first time the Panthers reached the state quarterfinals.

On March 25, Kruse tied the national record with 16 assists in Orange’s 18-5 win over Southern Alamance at Dedmon Stadium in Graham. The only other recorded player in American high school history with 16 assists was Ryan Stadelmaier of Midland-Dow High in Michigan. In 2021, Stadlemaier had 16 assists against Linden High on May 20, 2022.

This year, Kruse has broken his own single-season record for most points in a year. He finished the regular season with 178 points across 21 games, where Orange finished 20-1, a new team record for most wins in a regular season. Last year, he tallied 150 points in 22 games. Earlier this year, he became the first Orange player with 400 career points in the Southern Alamance victory.

With attackers like Brian Williams, Brett Clark, Gray Crabtree, Matthew Macneir and Max Stern joining veterans Josh Crabtree and Josh Cowan, Kruse has set a new single-season assist record with 107 this year. The Panthers have defeated 4A teams like Apex, Jordan and Pinecrest, the latter game ending in overtime when Kruse assisted on the game-winning goal scored by Williams to cap a game that had 25 penalties, which had to be another record of some sort.

He holds the single-season school record for most goals in a year with 69, set in 2023. Going into the Northwood game, Kruse has 62 this season. Later this week, he will have a chance to set a new mark when Orange starts play in the 3A/2A/1A State Playoffs. The Panthers will be the #1 seed for the East Region after being the top-ranked RPI team for the entire season. The official bracket will be released today (Monday).

Last year, Kruse committed to play at Lenoir-Rhyne, along with teammate Sascha Van Praag. Earlier this weekend, Lenoir-Rhyne won the South Atlantic Conference Tournament championship. Last year, the Bears won the Division II National Championship for the first time.

Kruse is the son of Travis Kruse, who spent the first two seasons of his college career playing at Johns Hopkins. Eventually, Kruse transferred to North Carolina, where he played his final two years.

The Panthers win over Northwood extended its conference regular season winning streak to 44 straight games. Orange hasn’t lost a regular season conference game since April 27, 2019, when they fell to Northwood.

Photo by Carly Williams 

The standards around Orange lacrosse have changed. Dramatically.

In 2016, it was a cause for major celebration when the Panthers beat a nearby rival, like Eastern Alamance. Before that, one person close to Orange athletics recently reminisced “Orange may have lost often, but it was a good night when they stayed in a game long enough to avoid a running clock.”

That was before Chandler Zirkle became the Panthers head coach. His father, Franklin, was at the forefront of lacrosse locally from the sport’s beginnings in North Carolina at this level, leading East Chapel Hill to two state championships before the sport was even sanctioned by the North Carolina High School Athletic Association. In the 2000s, when Chandler suited up as a Wildcat, the sport was operated by a group of local coaches.

Like his father, Chandler isn’t coaching a team as much as he’s built a program. It isn’t limited to Orange High School, where Chandler’s father now serves as an assistant. It extends to Orange Middle, where Chandler teaches and creates a breeding ground.

On Tuesday night, Orange lacrosse claimed its fourth consecutive Mid-Piedmont Conference championship in fashion about as dramatic as the Road Runner escaping the Coyote. The Panthers romped past Western Alamance 21-5, improving to 15-0 in conference play.

Orange, 19-1 overall, outscored conference opposition 284-51 this season. It was the third straight game that Orange scored 20 goals in a game and the sixth time overall.

The conference title is the latest achievement for a senior class that helped make Zirkle’s aspirations of turning a team into his program a reality. There’s been Katie Wolter, the goalkeeper who faced the obligatory taunts from opposing fans and players simply for being a female competing against men two-to-three times a week. Last month, she made her 300th career save in a 10-8 win over Jordan in Durham. Her brother Tyson, who played at Orange under former head coach David O’Neil, is now an assistant coach.

And, of course, there’s Connor Kruse, the all-time leading scorer in school history. Last week, Kruse broke several school single-season records. He became the first player in school history to surpass 100 assists in a season when he racked up ten assists in a 25-2 win over Eastern Alamance. He also broke his own single-season record with 156 points. Last year, he had 143.

On Tuesday night, Josh Crabtree scored four goals, pushing his senior total to 27, a new career-high. Josh Cowan has 19 goals this year. On defense, long stick midfielder Alden Cathey and Sascha Van Praag continue to be a force. Van Praag will join Kruse in playing for Lenoir-Rhyne, the reigning Division II national champions. Cathey will play at Arcadia University in Pennsylvania.

Jace and Kale Womble have supplied the Panthers with defensive depth. Newcomers like Nate Sorrells, in his first year playing varsity lacrosse after four years as a running back in football, have provided a valuable presence. Bryce Nelson has scored seven goals.

Of course, there’s another generation ready to carry Orange forward. Sophomore Brett Clark finished with a hat trick against the Warriors, along with junior Grey Crabtree. This season, Crabtree has a career-high 25 goals and 26 assists.

The Panthers will likely be seeded #1 in the East Region when the state playoffs brackets are released on Monday. For the third year in a row, the road to the State Championship game will probably run through Auman Stadium.

The overriding question for Orange is will the third time be the charm? Each of the last two years, the Panthers have hosted the 3A/2A/1A Eastern Regional championship game. In 2022, First Flight put on a defensive clinic to beat the Panthers 13-7. Last year, Orange faced a Northwood team they had beaten twice before in the regular season, but the Chargers came through with a 10-8 win.

Zirkle has kept the focus on playing one game at a time this year. A looming battle in the playoffs against Croatan, who has been ranked #2 in the 3A/2A/1A East rankings all year, has been a possibility that the coaching staff has prepared for since winter.

Regardless, Tuesday night was not another championship for the Orange lacrosse team.

It was a championship for the Orange lacrosse program.

Midway through the season and the Orange lacrosse team is off to its best start in team history. The Panthers are 10-0 after beating Southern Alamance last week in Graham. This week, the Panthers will face a stiff test in Holly Springs, a 4A team that beat the Panthers 16-4 last year. Orange has already beaten three 4A teams this year. Last month, Orange journeyed to Pinehurst and came away with a wild win over Pinecrest 10-9 in overtime. Sophomore Brandon Williams scored the game-winning goal off an assist from Connor Kruse. Orange trailed 9-5 with 11:48 remaining in regulation, but Williams led a comeback. He scored four goals, Josh Crabtree tied the game with 1:04 remaining in regulation when he scored off a rebound from a shot fired by Kruse. Orange overcame three penalties in the final minute of regulation and got strong defensive play from defenseman Sascha Van Praag and goalkeeper Jackson Runkle, who played in the fourth quarter and alternated with starter Katie Wolter. Kruse assisted on four goals. On Friday night, Orange will return to conference play to face crosstown rival Cedar Ridge. Orange is going for its fourth consecutive Mid-Carolina Conference championship and is currently ranked the #1 team in the East Region in the 3A/2A/1A classification.

Orange senior Connor Kruse had already etched his name into the Orange High lacrosse record books a long time ago. Now, he has put his name into the national record books. On Monday night, Kruse tied a national record by registering 16 assists in Orange’s 18-5 win over Southern Alamance at Redmond Stadium in Graham. Kruse tied the record set by Ryan Stadiumelmaier of Midland-Dow High School in Michigan set in 2022. Along the way, Kruse became the first player in Orange history to surpass 400 points. Last week, Kruse became the first player to eclipse 200 career assists in Orange’s 14-1 win over Northwood at Auman Stadium. Kruse finished with one goal and three assists against the Chargers. After its win over the Patriots, the Panthers improved to 10-0, 7-0 in the Mid-Carolina Conference. Last winter, Kruse signed to play with Lenoir-Rhyne, which won the Division II National Championship last year in Philadelphia. Against Northwood, senior Bryce Nelson earned a gaol. Earning the win as goalkeeper was freshman Jackson Runkle, who played all 48 minutes. Runkle recently finished his first season with Orange wrestling. Orange lacrosse is off for the rest of this week to enjoy spring break. In the meantime, they will prepare for a difficult 4A opponent, Holly Springs, on April 4. 

Connor Kruse has been setting records and milestones even before he started playing lacrosse at Orange.

In his last middle school game, he scored a goal right off the faceoff in a blowout win at Roxboro Community School. That was the final game before the pandemic set in, leading to middle school athletics being shut down for nearly 18 months.

No one knew it at the time, but it was also the final game in the long, storied athletic history of Stanford Chargers athletics before the name of the school was changed. It would be rebranded Orange Middle School in February 2021.

Kruse is now a senior and he owns almost every offensive record in the Orange lacrosse record book. On Monday night, he entered his name in a national record book.

Kruse tied the American record for most assists in a game with 16 in Orange’s 18-5 win over Southern Alamance at Redmond Stadium in Graham. The only other high school player in American high school history to have 16 assists in a game is Ryan Stadelmaier of Midland-Dow High in Michigan. In 2021, Stadlemaier had 16 assists against Linden High on May 20, 2022.

Stadelmaier is now playing lacrosse at Air Force, a member of the Division I Atlantic Sun Conference.

Kruse, the son of former North Carolina and Johns Hopkins lacrosse player Travis Kruse, became the first Orange lacrosse player to surpass 400 points in his career.

Last week, Kruse became the first Orange player to reach 200 career assists in a 14-1 win over Northwood at Auman Stadium in Hillsborough. Kruse’s feed to Gray Crabtree with 2:07 remaining in the second quarter put the Panthers ahead 7-0 and earned him another milestone in Orange history. Kruse finished the night with one goal and three assists.

“I’ve played with a lot of guys here who have done some great things,” Kruse said after last Thursday’s win over the Chargers. “There’s a lot of guys who have contributed to that. Ryan Merrill (who graduated in 2022) all the way to today with Brett (Clark) and Brandon Williams, there’s just a lot of guys who have helped me get to that point. I’d just like to thank them for helping me.”

Kruse also owns the Orange record for 170 goals coming into this season.

Kruse is after more than just records in his final games at Orange. The Panthers are 10-0, 7-0 in the Mid-Carolina Conference. Kruse was a member of the first Orange lacrosse team to win a conference championship in 2021. Since then, Orange has added two more league titles to its collection and has hosted the 3A/2A/1A Eastern Regional championship game each of the last two years.

Now, Kruse is hunting for a regional championship. It appeared that last year would be Orange’s time when they faced Northwood at Auman Stadium, a team the Panthers had defeated five straight times. But the Chargers came away with a 10-8 victory in Hillsborough.

Under head coach Chandler Zirkle, the Panthers are off to its best start in team history. They have wins over 4A teams Apex, Pinecrest and Jordan.

“Those 4A games at the beginning of the year helped us,” Kruse said. “We’re just focused on trying to get better every day.”

The win over Southern Alamance on Monday night ended a stretch of four games over six days for the Panthers. On Friday night, Orange defeated Western Alamance 17-5 at Primm Stadium in Elon. Kruse finished with six goals and three assists. Clark came away with four goals and one assist.

Last December, Kruse officially signed to play with Lenoir-Rhyne, which won the Division II national championship last year. The Bears defeated Mercyhurst 20-5 in Philadelphia to win the first national championship in team history.