A decade ago, the Orange lacrosse team finished a winless conference season by losing to crosstown rival Cedar Ridge 15-3.
On Tuesday night, some 3,679 days after a largely ignored end to a forgettable season, the same Orange program hosted the 3A/2A/1A Eastern Regional Men’s Lacrosse Championship game in front of thousands of fans at Auman Stadium.
It was a world of difference between what Orange lacrosse was then and what it is now. The storybook finish would have led the Panthers playing again in Cary this Friday night for the state championship.
That will have to wait.
The First Flight Nighthawks reeled off an 11-1 run at the end of the first quarter to beat Orange 13-7 at Auman Stadium on Tuesday night.
First Fight (12-3), who came into the season with only one state playoff win in school history, captured its first regional championship in lacrosse. They will face Lake Norman Charter for the 3A/2A/1A State Championship on Friday night at WakeMed Soccer Park in Cary.
Junior Jacob Gray continued a strong postseason with five goals to lead the Nighthawks. Gray scored eight goals against Cedar Ridge in a 14-10 win in the third round of the State Playoffs in Kill Devil Hills last Tuesday.
While hosting a regional championship game for the first time in school history will always be a point of pride for this Orange team, the loss to the Nighthawks will likely leave sour feelings. Last year, the Panthers played at a high level in losing to East Chapel Hill in the state quarterfinals at Auman Stadium. The Wildcats won, but Orange played well offensively. East had Alec Levy, whose five goals was enough to take the Wildcats to the regional final. Two teams played its best and the better one won.
Against the Nighthawks, the Panthers were held to its lowest scoring output of the season. While the Nighthawks defense may have been the best Orange has faced, the Panthers were sloppy offensively. Simple passes that Orange usually completes almost effortlessly wound up out of bounds or in the pockets of Nighthawk sticks. The Panthers were just 1-of-5 in man-up opportunities, rarely getting multiple shots on possessions when the Nighthawks had someone confined to the penalty box.
After Orange led 3-1 at the end of the first quarter, they were held to just one goal in the subsequent 23:26. Sophomore Connor Kruse and junior Joe Cady, Orange’s leading scorer with 136 points this season, was held without a goal for the first time this year.
First Flight longstick defenseman Cam Van Lunen, the son of head coach John Van Lunen, defended Kruse for much of the game.
Tigh Metheny and Jake Wimsatt each had two goals for Orange.
“We weren’t able to possess the ball the way we wanted to do it,” said Orange coach Chandler Zirkle. “I think we got caught up with how electric the crowd was. The moment got a little bit bigger than us.”
After Grey Crabtree knocked a loose ball into the net past First Fight goalkeeper Porter Smith, Orange led 3-1 at the end of the first quarter. Josh Cowan and Metheney opened the Panther scoring. Orange goalkeeper Katie Wolter made three saves from point-blank range against the Nighthawks in the first quarter and it appeared the Panthers were in good shape.
That changed very quickly.
Immediately in the second quarter, the Nighthawks assumed command. Joey Krieg scored in transition off a feed from Joe Wagner only 43 seconds into the frame. Grey tied the game after another fast break goal assisted by Van Lunen. After Orange’s Alden Cathey was called for a slashing penalty, senior Jackson Kelly notched his 23rd tally of the year on a diagonal pass from Krieg for the first man-up goal of the game. First Flight took its first lead 4-3 with 9:22 left in the first half and they were just getting warmed up.
Sophomore James Summerton went low to the bottom right corner against Wolter to make it 5-3. Kelly, Wagner and Grey (three goals in the first half) all scored in the final minutes of the second quarter to put the Nighthawks ahead 7-4 at the half.
Orange was no stranger to comeback wins in the regular season. They trailed Northwood 8-1 in Pittsboro on March 21 and still prevailed 14-9. They trailed the Chargers again 10-7 with 8:43 remaining on April 27, then finished the game with the final five goals to win 12-10.
There would be no rally on Tuesday. The Nighthawks kept Orange scoreless in the third quarter. Senior Nicholas Gardill, First Flight’s leading scorer, hat a hat trick in the third quarter. His final goal, assisted by Gray, gave First Flight an 11-4 lead.
Wimsatt scored Orange’s only man-up goal in a 6-on-4 situation in the fourth quarter. Joe Cady notched his lone tally after he whacked a rebound into the top of the net to cut the Orange deficit to 13-7 with 6:27 remaining. There was some left time for a miracle, but First Flight was too disciplined and ran out the clock as the faithful from Kill Devil Hills, who had driven four hours to Hillsborough, cheered on.
The Orange players got a standing ovation from the largest lacrosse crowd in Auman Stadium history. The Panthers’ following in lacrosse will likely only grow from here. A team that has twice as many sophomores as seniors will return all of its offensive weapons from a 17-3 team, the most successful in school history.
But for Zirkle as his Orange coaching staff, there’s pain right now which may only grow as the weekend approaches. In 2005, Chandler’s father, Franklin, took his East Chapel Hill Wildcats into Cary’s WakeMed Soccer Park (then called SAS Stadium) and won the North Carolina Lacrosse Association’s State Championship over Chapel Hill. Even now, 17 years later, the game’s final score of 10-2 just rolls off the tip of his tongue.
Chandler Zirkle was a ballboy for that East team. Now, his father is an assistant at Orange after amassing over 200 head coaching wins at East and Leesville Road. Zirkle wanted to coach in Cary this weekend, just like his father did in 2005. Now, he’ll explore how to get better with the bulk of a Mid-Carolina Conference Championship team returning for 2023 and a bevy of 8th graders arriving from Orange Middle School waiting to make their mark, some possibly sooner than later.
But for now, there’s just pain after a lost opportunity.
“First Flight played a really good game,” Zirkle said. “They had a really good defensive game plan. We had too many uncharacteristic turnovers and I’m not sure what they were based on. We just threw the ball away too much. It’s probably a product of not being fully ready for the moment. I think that’s probably more of it than anything else. We have a really young group. I hope at this time next year, we’re more ready for this.”