Cedar Ridge Men’s Basketball

This week’s Cedar Ridge Red Wolf of the Week is senior basketball forward K.J. Barnes. On Tuesday night, Barnes scored eleven points as the Red Wolves defeated Orange 66-55 for its first win at Panther Gymnasium since 2015. Barnes has starred on the basketball floor and the gridiron for years. In October, he scored the game-winning 2-point conversion in Cedar Ridge’s victory over Chapel Hill in football. This season, Barnes has played an instrumental role as Cedar Ridge has surpassed its win total from all of last season. In his junior season, K.J. didn’t have a varsity football team to play on when the Red Wolves didn’t field a team, but he remained at Cedar Ridge. On Tuesday night, his wait paid off with a hard earned win over a crosstown rival. K.J. Barnes and the rest of the Red Wolves return to action on Friday night when Cedar Ridge hosts Northern Durham.

Entering Tuesday night, Cedar Ridge coaches, players and fans had done a lot of waiting.

Red Wolves Coach Jaison Brooks was just itching to play a game.

It had been 21 days since his Cedar Ridge Red Wolves had taken the floor in a 70-42 loss to Northwood in Pittsboro.

For Cedar Ridge players, they just wanted to beat an Orange team that, just three weeks ago, was 7-1.

Many of them had struggled through a 1-23 season last year. And the year before that, they were 4-20.

None of the Cedar Ridge players were in high school the last time the Red Wolves won at Orange. On January 20, 2015, Payton Pappas hit a 15-footer with one second remaining to give the Red Wolves a 63-61 victory over the Panthers.

They aren’t waiting anymore.

Cedar Ridge outscored Orange 27-10 in the fourth quarter, shooting 11-of-13 from the field in the final eight minutes, to topple Orange 66-55 at a packed Panther Gymnasium on Tuesday night. Mekai Collins, who led Orange in scoring last season, paced the Red Wolves with 29 points.

Cedar Ridge (3-8, 1-2 in the Big 8 Conference) ended a 24-game Big 8 Conference losing streak. The last time the Red Wolves won a Big 8 Conference game, it was January 26, 2017, when they defeated Orange 55-38 at Red Wolves Gymnasium. That was also Cedar Ridge’s last victory over its crosstown rivals before Tuesday.

Jerec Thompson had 13 points to lead Orange, who dropped its fifth straight game. The Panthers played without guard Jason Franklin, who missed his third straight game with a bad back. It was also their second game without senior center Machai Holt, who was dismissed from the team for disciplinary reasons on Friday.

Holt watched from Orange’s student section Tuesday night.

Orange took a 37-24 lead with 6:02 remaining in the third quarter after a 3-pointer from junior Kendrell Brooks. The Panthers, who lived by the three-pointer in the opening two months, missed their next 12 shots from beyond the arc.

Cedar Ridge ended the game on a 42-19 run in the final 14 minutes. Collins scored 21 points in the second half against his old team.

“We got down because we missed some shots,” said Cedar Ridge Coach Jaison Brooks. “We had some bad defensive possessions. We knew if we could fix those things, we could get back into the game. The crew we put it did just that. They stepped in and stepped up the defensive intensity. They were able to knock down some shots.”

After Jared Wood drained a 15-foot jumper to put Orange ahead 47-43 early in the fourth quarter, the Red Wolves went on a 6-0 run to take its first lead since it was 5-4 in the opening minutes. After senior K.J. Barnes split two free throws, Collins took a skip pass from Cameron Harper and drained a 3-pointer to tie the game.

Collins found Derrick Smith, who played the final minutes with four fouls, off a transition basket to give the Red Wolves the lead 49-47. After Kyle Stanley and Brooks notched consecutive field goals to five Orange a 51-49 lead, Harper hit a driving lay-up to tie the game, then Collins drained a 3-pointer to put Cedar Ridge ahead for good.

In the final four minutes, Orange shot 1-for-8 from the field. Smith put a cherry on top of a very tasty ice cream sundae with a 3-pointer with 1:14, naturally off an assist from Collins.

In the fourth quarter, Cedar Ridge hit all nine of its shots from 2-point range. They were 2-of-4 from behind the arc.

“We got totally out of character in the fourth quarter,” said Orange coach Derryl Britt. “It was not mature basketball. We got frantic. I think as Cedar started to run and get back in the game, we started to press. Then we got away from playing team basketball. It became ‘Let me beat my guy.’ They didn’t do very well for us.”

Orange led 31-21 at halftime after Joey McMullin banked in a 3-pointer from 25-feet at the second quarter buzzer. It was McMullin’s only 3-pointer of the game. The Panthers shot 6-of-27 from outside the arc.

Cedar Ridge will travel to Granville Central on Wednesday night, then host Northern Durham on Friday.

Orange will host Northern Durham on Thursday, then welcome Chapel Hill to Hillsborough on Friday.

CEDAR RIDGE 66, ORANGE 55

CEDAR RIDGE–K.J. Barnes 12, Chris Tinnen 3, Cameron Harper 8, Derrick Smith 9, Grayson Ramos 3, James Ragland 1, Mekai Collins 29, Grady Ray 1.

ORANGE–Jerec Thompson 13, Kendrell Brooks 8, J.J. Thompson 2, Kyle Stanley 6, Joey McMullin 11, Tucker Miller 6, Jared Wood 7, Hunter Birch 2.

3-Pointers: Cedar Ridge 5 (Collins 3, Smith, Harper) Orange 6 (Je. Thompson 3, Brooks, Woods, McMullin)

FOULED OUT: Cedar Ridge-none. Orange (Miller, McMullin).

For the first time since 2015, the Cedar Ridge men’s basketball team defeated Orange inside Panther Gym on Tuesday night. The Red Wolves fought back from 13 points down to defeat the Panthers 66-55. Mekai Collins, who played at Orange last season, led the Red Wolves with 29 points, including 20 in the second half. Collins added nine rebounds and five assists as the Red Wolves outscored the Panthers 27-10 in the fourth quarter. For Collins, it was especially sweet after he started at Cedar Ridge his first two seasons. Collins shot 10-of-17 from the field, including 3-of-5 from 3-pint range. The victory ended Cedar Ridge’s 24-game Big 8 Conference losing streak. It was its first win over a Big 8 opponent since January 26, 2018, when they defeated Orange 55-38 at Red Wolves Gymnasium.

It’s not even New Year’s Day yet, but the Cedar Ridge men’s basketball team has already surpassed its win total from last year. The Red Wolves defeated Durham School of the Arts 56-47 on December 10 for its second win of the year. Mekai Collins scored 25 points to pace Cedar. Ridge, while Derrick Smith added ten. Cedar Ridge won’t play in a Christmas tournament this week. Instead, the Red Wolves will return to action on January 7th at Orange in a cross county matchup at Panther Gymnasium. Cedar Ridge started the year with a 77-48 rout of the North Carolina School of Science and Math. Hillsboroughsports.com’s Jmari Graham talked about the season thus far with Cedar Ridge men’s basketball coach Jaison Brooks.

There aren’t many secrets about the success Cedar Ridge Men’s Basketball has sustained in the early stages of the 2019-20 season: as Mekai Collins goes, so go the Red Wolves. 

Locked in a tight contest between two desperate one-win teams that flashed tenacity and desire throughout and staring down a seventh-straight loss, the Red Wolves needed their star senior to deliver. A season-high 25 points, including a near-flawless day from the foul line, half a dozen assists, a few steals, and some masterful clock wasting later, deliver he did. A year removed from a season where the Red Wolves managed just one win in 24 tries, a 10-0 Cedar Ridge run late in the fourth quarter sealed off the second Red Wolves victory in eight tries this year, as Cedar Ridge (2-6, 0-1 Big 1) fended off a gutsy Durham School of the Arts (1-7) Bulldog team 56-47 on Tuesday night in Hillsborough. 

This was an odd game from the get-go. Both starting fives came out to the floor as usual, and KJ Barnes was ready for the opening tip to come at any moment, but the referees sent both teams back to their huddles because DSA, unbeknownst to anyone, had gotten new jerseys within the last week and failed to update their online rosters – only about a quarter of the Bulldog roster was actually wearing the numbers they had been assigned preseason. Once the confusion was cleared, the Bulldogs came out strong, knocking down a pair of threes and celebrating in front of the Cedar Ridge fans en route to a 14-10 first quarter advantage. But Cedar Ridge flipped the script in the second, limiting the Bulldogs to only five points in the period and establishing a 23-19 halftime edge. 

The previous night, Cedar Ridge kept within striking distance of Chapel Hill for most of the contest but never could complete the comeback against the Tigers’ tough defense. On this night, the Red Wolves became the instigators – DSA’s Justin Glover hit a 3 early in the fourth to get the Bulldogs to within 41-39, but Cedar Ridge locked it down from there for their 56-47 victory. 

A very young DSA team showed plenty of reasons why they could be loads better than last year’s four-win side, but the Bulldogs couldn’t string together enough offensive possessions to come back. Guard Josh Pope kept DSA in the contest almost single-handedly early with nine of his team’s 19 first-half points, but once Glover and DSA standout Isajah Deburgo woke up after halftime the Bulldogs looked loads better. Deburgo and Glover, DSA’s two most reliable scorers this year, combined for 23 points on five made threes, but 16 of those points came after the break, and by then, Collins and Cedar Ridge had built up a lead DSA couldn’t crack. 

Collins was the driving force in the victory for Cedar Ridge, but, like usual, he got some contributions from Cedar Ridge’s deep stable of options. Andrew Altieri and Grayson Ramos each hit critical threes in the second half. Derrick Smith was a force on the offensive glass, cleaning up misses and securing putbacks all evening as part of his ten-point outing. And Barnes, who didn’t record a point and ended up fouling out, still played a huge role by securing a couple of key defensive boards in the fourth to help Cedar Ridge bleed the clock. 

Next up for the Red Wolves is a date with undefeated South Granville, which is fresh off an impressive win over Orange on the other side of Hillsborough on Tuesday. But for now, a year after even one win was far from a sure thing, the Cedar Ridge men can enjoy what was a hard-fought second victory of this year. 

For the Cedar Ridge women, Tuesday’s tilt against DSA represented a prime chance to bounce back from Monday night’s setback against Chapel Hill. The Bulldog women at 4-3 were frankly the most successful of the four teams on display Tuesday – no other team had more than one win on the year – but DSA had been far from convincing even in their wins and were without their best player, Precious Ogboko, a sophomore center averaging 20 points and 11 rebounds per game but didn’t even make the trip to Hillsborough. 

But still without Tori Dalehite and Isabella Flynt, and now without starting center Caitlin Lloyd, Cedar Ridge was playing shorthanded as well. Even still, the Red Wolves started out much better than they did against the Tigers, hitting a couple of foul shots to pull to within 16-10 early in the second. But then Lindsay Suitt got hot. With Ogboko out, the true freshman guard Suitt emerged as the leader of a super young DSA team that sports only one senior, erupting for a career-high 25 points to lead the Bulldogs to what turned into a comfortable 49-33 victory over Cedar Ridge. 

On the other side, Cedar Ridge looked improved offensively, albeit against an inferior defense than Chapel Hill’s, and shot 58% from the line, much better than usual, to keep the score close for much of the contest. Most significantly, Takia Nichols delivered the game of her young Cedar Ridge career. Starting in place of Lloyd, the sophomore center notched 10 points, all in the second half, and secured 11 rebounds, including five on the offensive end, for her first career double-double. The Red Wolves’ losing streak has hit 11, but they’ll have their best chance at their first win this year when a winless South Granville team that just got waxed by Orange comes to town on Thursday.