Photo by Jacques Morin
CARRBORO–Though football is the most team-oriented sport, Jamie Bailey knows firsthand how one player can take over a game.
Now the head coach at Orange Middle School, Bailey was an assistant for Orange High during the days of Payton and Bryse Wilson when the Panthers won three straight conference championships. Some nights, the Wilson brothers’ sheer will, skill and versatility would guide the Panthers to victory.
On Wednesday night, Bailey saw another Wilson-caliber performance. It was from Culbreth’s Nasir Brown.
The Cougars running back scored three touchdowns, recovered two onside kicks and scored two 2-point conversions to lift Culbreth past Orange Middle 22-0 to win the Orange Person Athletic Conference championship game at Carrboro High School.
Brown finished with 94 rushing yards.
Brown scored on a 57-yard touchdown run on the first play from scrimmage, then recovered the subsequent onside kick to set the tone for the night. The Chargers, who suffered its first loss in over two years to Culbreth on October 29, didn’t snap the ball for the first time until there was 1:07 remaining in the first quarter.
The Culbreth defense forced four turnovers and sacked Orange quarterback Beckett Kinlaw six times.
“Brown is a heck of a player,” Bailey said. “I was fortunate enough to coach Payton Wilson and Bryse Wilson in high school. In middle school, Brown is the closest thing I’ve seen to them. Not just on offense, because he’s super good at running back. But at linebacker, he goes from sideline-to-sideline. We have really fast kids and he was able to take everything away.”
It was the first time Orange was shutout since Bailey became the head coach, which was before the pandemic. Orange was held to two first downs and 19 yards total offense.
Culbreth coach John Miller, who will retire from teaching next month, earned his second OPAC championship. The other came in 2008.
The Cougars overcame the loss of starting quarterback E.J. Laws, who suffered a leg injury late in the first quarter and didn’t return. It relegated the Cougars offense to a series of direct snaps to Brown and backup quarterback Niam Heaton, normally an offensive lineman. The Cougars didn’t complete a pass but still cruised to victory, handing Orange its third loss since 2023.
“I think I wilted more than my team did,” Miller said. “My assistant coaches came up with a plan B. It was a big boy, ground and pound strategy. We had bigger guys running the ball with Nasir still getting carries. When E.J. went out, we couldn’t pass as much. So we had to go ahead and ground-and-pound. The guys did a great job.”
Laws was injured after he gained five yards on 3rd-and-4 to the Charger 9-yard line. The Cougars scored on 4th-and-goal when Brown scored on a five-yard carry with 1:07 remaining in the first quarter.
Orange committed its first turnover to open the second quarter after a fumble on the opening play from scrimmage. The brightest highlight for the Chargers came when Jamyrie Thompson picked off a pass from Heaton. Orange got the ball to midfield, but Culbreth’s Ari Klem sacked Kinlaw on the final play of the first half.
As Orange mounted an attempt to score in the fourth quarter, they tried a throwback screen. But Brown was waiting on it, picking off the ball clean and returned it 54 yards for a touchdown. Brown added the two-point conversion.
“He’s a man-child,” Brown said. “He’s so far advanced. He could go into high school and play right now. Him and E.J are high school-caliber. I’m going to saviour this because Orange has been on top. Today was our day.”
Orange was going for its third consecutive OPAC Championship and attempted to continue the dominance of the Northern Division alive. Before Orange’s titles, Northern and Southern Middle Schools in Roxboro had captured the conference. It’s the first time a team from the Chapel Hill-Carrboro area won the OPAC title since 2018, at the earliest.
