Men’s Soccer: Orange 2, Eastern Alamance 0: It’s all but certain that the Orange men’s soccer team will do something unprecedented in the 35-year history of the program later this week.
They will make the state playoffs in back-to-back years.
On Monday night, the Panthers got two goals from Traver Bruhns to defeat Eastern Alamance 2-0 at the John Kirby Sports Complex in Mebane. With the win, the Panthers ensured a winning regular season at 8-7-3. They end the Central Carolina Conference slate at 6-4-2, good enough for fourth place.
In his final regular season game, Bruhns, a senior, had his first career brace. Angel Chavez and Daniel Romero assisted on the goals.
Orange goalkeeper Finn Kelly made six saves to earn his fourth clean sheet of the season.
As of Wednesday night, Orange was ranked #26 in the 3A East RPI rankings, which would comfortably put them in the field of 64. The state tournament begins on Monday.
Women’s Tennis: Rocky Mount 5, Cedar Ridge 1: In the second round of the 3A State Dual Team Playoffs, Rocky Mount ended Cedar Ridge’s season on Monday afternoon.
The Gryphons, the champions of The Big East, improved to 15-0. In her final match, Cedar Ridge’s Annabeth Lundberg defeated Jillian Schrimper 7-5, 6-3, the only win of the day for the Red Wolves.
Cedar Ridge ends the season 14-6. It was the final match for head coach Steve Mayhew, who is stepping down after four years. Under his direction, the Red Wolves won the first men’s tennis conference championship in school history in 2022. Mayhew, a former player at Orange, coached the women’s team to its first victory in the 3A State Team playoffs since 2016 last week when they defeated crosstown rival Orange.
Mayhew’s daughter, Cameron, also played in her final match for the Red Wolves. Cameron Mayhew ended her senior year with a singles record of 14-3. It was also the final matches for Lundberg, Catherine Ballenger, Dupree Sorenson, and Raven Mowles-Airing.
Cedar Ridge finished with the most overall wins since they won the Big 8 Conference championship in 2016. That team, with Lennie Corbett as head coach, reached the 3A State Quarterfinals with an overall record of 19-2.