Jeff Hamlin

Alisha Pettiford hit one home run during the regular season for Orange. On Saturday night, she hit her 2nd, and it couldn’t have come at a better time. West Brunswick trailed 5-4 in the fifth after falling behind 5-0 at the end of one inning. In the bottom of the sixth, Pettiford laced a two-run homer to left field to sew up a game 2 victory. She also scored in game 3 during a 3-run 2nd inning, which put Orange ahead for good.

Entering Friday’s game against West Brunswick, Orange sophomore Olivia Ruff had never hit a home run. Not in a regular season game, not in a summer league game, not even in practice. Yet in game 2 against the Trojans, the 3rd baseman changed the shape of the series with a grand slam in the 1st inning, putting Orange ahead 5-0, a deficit the Panthers never yielded on its way to a 7-4 win.

In his 2nd year at the helm, Orange coach Eddie Davidson has led the Panthers to its first-ever Regional Championship. The Panthers defeated West Brunswick 5-1 to win the best-of-3 Eastern Regional Championship series on Friday night in Hillsborough. Orange will play Piedmont for the 3A State Championship in another best-of-3 series.

Though she didn’t start in either of Orange’s two games against West Brunswick on Friday night, Enzyah Holt made an impact. She scored three runs as a courtesy runner. In the third and deciding game against the Trojans, she scored the Panthers’ final two runs running for pitcher Kristina Givens as Orange won 5-1, earning its first-ever Eastern Regional Championship in softball.

Cedar Ridge senior Sean Tobin finished his career with a hat trick in the 3A/2A/1A State Championship game on Friday, a 21-6 loss to Weddington at WakeMed Soccer Park in Cary. It was Tobin’s eleventh hat trick of the season, and his seventh in the last eight games. Tobin finsihed the year with 45 goals and 63 points. He ends his Cedar Ridge career with 146 goals and 375 points, a member of the first team from Hillsborough to play for a state lacrosse championship.

When it’s all said and done, the Cedar Ridge Boys Lacrosse team will go down as the first lacrosse team from Hillsborough to win a regional championship and play for the state championship. On Friday night, the Red Wolves jumped out to a 3-0 lead against Weddington, but the Warriors’ firepower overwhelmed CRHS in the second quarter. Weddington went on a 12-1 run in the 2nd quarter to defeat the Red Wolves 21-6 in the 3A/2A/1A State Championship game at WakeMed Soccer Park in Cary. Cedar Ridge Coach Patrick Kavanaugh, who took over the team when it didn’t even have a JV squad, led the squad to the Big 8 Conference Championship.