The first winning season for the Orange boys soccer team in seven years has led to an opening round matchup in Jacksonville.
The Panthers will face the White Oak Vikings on Wednesday night. It’s Orange’s first playoff appearance since 2014, when they fell to Cleveland in Wendell 3-1.
White Oak earned the second automatic playoff spot from the Coastal Conference, finishing 7-3 in the league and 13-8-1 overall. The Vikings head into the playoffs with momentum after upsetting Coastal Conference champion 3-2 at Jacksonville on Thursday.
Orange settled for the top wildcard spot in the Big 8 after being tied for first place entering the final five games of the regular season. The Panthers stumbled against Northwood on October 11 in Hillsborough, and enter the playoffs having lost three of its last four.
The Panthers thrust themselves in position to win the Big 8 by winning nine straight, including results over conference champion Chapel Hill (1-0 on September 20) and runner-up East Chapel Hill 2-1 on October 2.
Orange enters the playoffs 13-6-2, its best regular season mark in seven years, with a 10-4 Big 8 mark.
A playoff victory has proven difficult for Orange. The last time the school has won a postseason game was in 2009. At that point, Orange played in the Carolina 7 Conference and upset Gray’s Creek 1-0 in Hope Mills.
In 2013, Terry Sanford blasted the Panthers 5-0 in Fayetteville.
On paper, the best Orange team in modern history was in 2010, when they finished 15-5 in the regular season. Playing as the third seed out of the Big 8, Orange lost to Western Alamance 1-0 in Elon.
Last season, White Oak defeated Burlington Williams 3-1 in the opening round of the playoffs before losing to Chapel Hill 4-0.