Standing in a sweatbox gym at Fairchild Community Center in Burlington, Anna Seethaler seemed to know something a month ahead of everyone else.
She was asked by a local reporter how good her 2nd Cedar Ridge volleyball team would be.
“Look out,” was her pithy reply while wearing a beaming grin.
Look out? Many coaches in fall sports are full of optimism in August, but for a team that went 7-15 last year? That just lost senior Sarah McCuiston, who led the team in kills? That just lost promising sophomore Lydia Wood, who opted to transfer to The Trinity School after one year in Hillsborough?
Indeed, Seethaler did know something that almost everyone else didn’t. She watched as the Red Wolves breezed past Riverside, Greensboro Page and the Alamance Aces in scrimmages at the Fairchild Center on August 17 and understood that 2019 would be very different, in part because of three freshmen.
Three weeks later, Cedar Ridge has just completed its most successful stretch since reaching the 3A Eastern Regional Championship match in 2015.
To end an unenviable stretch in a sultry Orange High Gymnasium, the Red Wolves defeated crosstown rival Orange 3-2 on Thursday night in a rivalry game that was as entertaining as it was draining. Freshman Julie Altieri’s ace on match point was the perfect culmination of a week where the Cedar Ridge rookies delivered notice to the rest of the Big 8 Conference, and possibly the entire region.
Look out, indeed.
Cedar Ridge won on scores of 25-23, 22-25, 25-23, 15-25 and 15-7.
Orange (6-4, 1-1) had a six-game winning streak snapped.
After beating three-time defending Big 8 Champion Chapel Hill on Tuesday and Orange on Thursday, the Red Wolves sit atop the league with a 3-0 league record. With an 8-1 overall mark, the Red Wolves have already surpassed its win total from last season.
The last time Cedar Ridge defeated Orange, it was September 1, 2016. There was barely a ripple of celebration around Red Wolves Gymnasium that night because beating the Lady Panthers was all too common. Cedar Ridge had trumped Orange nine straight times.
Seethaler, who lived in Utah in 2016, wasn’t a clued in about the rivalry as other longtime local residents.
“I haven’t been here so I don’t know the rivalry so well,” Seethaler said. “I’m happy, though.”
The win on Thursday ended the Red Wolves’ five-game losing streak to the Lady Panthers.
It came amid a raucous gym where opposing student sections standing on opposite sides traded barbs about everything from the officiating to lack of air conditioning.
On a day where the heat index reached 101 degrees in Hillsborough, the sweltering weather led to a slick court and some spectators retreated to the parking lot before the exciting finish.
“I think it got to me,” Seethaler said. “I don’t think they thought about the heat. They had to play through it.”
In the fifth set, it was freshman Cameron Lloyd who fired the biggest shots, serving four consecutive aces as the Red Wolves bounced ahead 7-2. Lloyd, who already has 100 kills after Monday’s loss to Jordan, had three kills in the final set.
Orange sophomore Lottie Scully had four kills in the 4th set, the only lopsided frame in the match.
The opening set had eight ties and four lead changes. The second set had 13 ties and four lead changes.
In the first frame, Cedar Ridge scored the final four points with Lloyd serving. She delivered an ace to tie the set 23-23. Senior Emma Downing gave Cedar Ridge the lead with an unassisted kill. The Red Wolves took the opening set when a service return by Orange went wide.
Orange evened the match in the second. A successful block by Erin Jordan-Cornell gave the Lady Panthers a 22-18 lead. Jordan-Cornell finished the set with five kills. Cedar Ridge lost junior setter Layne Foster in the 2nd set because of a left quadricep injury.
Orange appeared set to take the 3rd set, leading 20-15 after a kill by senior Emma Clements off an assist from Ella Van Time. Cedar Ridge finished the frame with a 10-3 run, which included Altieri serving up three straight aces. She also slammed home set point.
The Red Wolves return home to face Bartlett Yancey on Monday. Orange returns home to take on Bartlett Yancey on Tuesday, then travels to Chapel Hill on Thursday.