August 18, 2017 was never supposed to be a famous date. Sure, it marked the beginning of a new football season and all the promise and excitement that contains, but there wasn’t much more to it than that. On that day, the Cedar Ridge football team opened its season at home against Carrboro, but the game was never completed – with 2:39 left in the second quarter and Cedar Ridge on top 21-6, awful weather in the area forced the game to be delayed, postponed, and ultimately called. It wasn’t pretty, and it sure wasn’t perfect, but Cedar Ridge still got the win.
Little did anyone involved with the Red Wolves program know that it would take more than two years for them to get another one.
August 18, 2017 was the date of the last Cedar Ridge varsity football win. That win was followed by 10 straight losses to close 2017 and six straight to open 2019, with a full year without varsity sandwiched in between. Thus far in 2019, the Red Wolves had been outscored by an average of 30 points per game and had only held one lead all season – the wait for that next varsity win seemed interminable.
The Chapel Hill Tigers entered Friday night’s match with a story remarkably similar to that of Cedar Ridge. They too were unable to field a varsity team in 2018 after a one-win season in 2017, and their only win in 2019 was a thrilling 35-34 overtime victory over Carrboro in which the Tigers scored 16 points in the final 100 seconds of the game to force overtime. Since August 18, 2017, Chapel Hill only had one other varsity win: a victory at Cedar Ridge on October 6.
In 2019, almost exactly two years later, Cedar Ridge got its revenge. Led by a trio of rushing touchdowns from Isaiah McCambry and a shorthanded defense that improved as the game progressed for the first time this season, the Red Wolves (1-6, 1-2 Big 8) nipped the Tigers (1-6, 0-3) 20-19 on Homecoming night in Hillsborough. It had been 785 days since August 18, 2017, the now-infamous date of the last Red Wolves win. Reset that counter to zero.
It was clear early on Friday that the Red Wolves and the Tigers were quite evenly matched. There are differences, to be sure – the Tigers are much more capable of passing the ball and Cedar Ridge has a dominant feature back, for example – but both teams seemed to recognize the opportunity for victory that had presented itself. After Cedar Ridge punted fairly early into its first possession, Chapel Hill marched 82 yards and opened the scoring on a 5-yard touchdown run by senior Caleb Clegg. The Tigers acted like they were going to go for two but flexed out of the formation with about 12 seconds left of the play clock, barely allowing kicker Luke Roeber to get set up, but he still made his kick to put the visitors up 7-0.
Those two drives used up all but 23 seconds of the first quarter clock, and the second quarter went by about as quickly. Both teams traded punts to open the period, but Tyler Roberts got a solid return of Roeber’s kick to set up Cedar Ridge at their own 47 – and then McCambry arrived. The sophomore tailback had already put together a solid showing in the game, but he made his mark with a 53-yard score down the left sideline to get the home team on the board. The Tigers snuffed out a 2-point conversion rush from Jake Mergenthal to keep the score 7-6.
From there, Chapel Hill had only one more drive before they punted it away with less than two minutes to go – each team had only three full possessions in a half that lasted less than an hour. The players parted to make way for the Homecoming festivities, but then the fans in attendance were treated to even further drama.
Chapel Hill opened the second half with a 75-yard touchdown drive capped off by a two-yard score from Jaylen Mitchell but that fake conversion formation robbed Roeber of the time to set up properly and he missed the PAT. Down 13-6, K.J. Barnes, fresh off his honor as a member of the Homecoming Court, returned the kickoff out to the Tiger 40-yard line, and McCambry soon punched it in from four yards out. The Red Wolves again went for two on a quick hitter from Will Berger to Barnes, but the Tigers again were up to the task, keeping the score 13-12.
The Tigers were often able to move the ball despite poor field position, and on the one drive where they did have a good start they capitalized quickly. Getting going from their own 40 on the first drive of the fourth quarter, Clegg soon capped it off with his second rushing score to put the visitors up seven. The Tigers initially lined up in a traditional two-point conversion formation – with about five minutes left a nine-point lead might have been insurmountable – but a Chapel Hill penalty changed coach Isaac Marsh’s mind. He instead elected to kick the PAT, but even with the traditional setup Roeber missed, keeping the Red Wolves within striking distance.
And strike they did. Cedar Ridge began a drive on its own 40-yard line or better four times Friday, and the Red Wolves scored on three of those situations. Another good kickoff return brought the Red Wolves out to their own 41, and just a few plays later McCambry completed his hat trick with a 36-yard burst up the middle of the defense and into the end zone. That made it 19-18, and Torrean Hinton didn’t waste any time in going for two and the lead. Cedar Ridge lined up with two fullbacks stacked right and everyone thought the ball went to McCambry – but instead, Berger flipped it to Barnes running an end-around from right to left, and no one was there to stop him from skipping into the end zone. With 4 minutes to go, Cedar Ridge had its latest lead all season at 20-19.
But Chapel Hill wasn’t done. The Tigers got a great kickoff return and started off at the Cedar Ridge 46, but the drive didn’t go well. Facing a 3rd-and-15 from the 29 with about two minutes left, Caleb Kelley went for it all with a heave down the right sideline for K.J. Jones, but Desi Raspberry Jr. was there to break it up. Marsh elected to kick the field goal rather than have his offense try again, and his second-string kicker sent his possible game-winning bid fluttering to the goal line, nearly 15 yards short of its target.
Cedar Ridge got the ball back. All it had to do was kneel a few times, and the wait would be over. For the first time in a long time, the Red Wolves had tasted varsity victory. After the handshakes and as the well-dressed Homecoming crowd filed out, the team circled around an energized Hinton for an address. Meanwhile, a few of the younger members of the team carted three Gatorade coolers over and doused the meeting’s inner circle – the seniors – with the drink. Cold, but good, they called it. The same could be said for the 2019 season so far – tough for a while, but, now, good.