Orange High School

There was every reason for Bryse Wilson to be bitter.

As he walked off the field for the final time as an Orange High football player at Durham County Stadium, Wilson was left with the same solemn feeling he had felt four other times in his career, having come up short against Southern Durham. Perhaps this time was the worst of all. It was certainly the last time, since it was the 2nd round of the 3-AA state playoffs.

Still, as he joined his teammates in the walk up the hill to the team bus for one final ride to Hillsborough, he saw Southern head coach Darius Robinson. The two embraced on the track.

“Go win it again,” said Wilson to Robinson, referring to the 3-AA state championship. Robinson softly nodded.

That’s how the latest chapter of the Southern-Orange rivalry, which has had its contentious moments, ended on Friday night.

It won’t make ESPN because, well, LeBron James probably has a game tomorrow. Or the next day. Plus, Tim Tebow is still breathing.

Still, Southern-Orange on Friday night will go down as one of those local legendary games that folks in the periphery of Clayton Road and Orange High School Road will be talking about for the rest of their lives.

As time passes, that discussion will center around questions that may sound embellished, like a good fishing story.

Was the game winning touchdown pass really thrown by Jordon Brown, who had thrown just two passes the entire year? Did Southern really run a fake punt from its own 28 up 3-0 in the 4th quarter? How did Wilson run for 228 yards against a Southern defensive front that constantly had eight men in the box? How could Orange stay in the game even though they threw one pass through the first three quarters? How did two Orange players carry the ball every play in the first half? And how could they still play linebacker, as well?

No doubt the question that Orange fans spent the weekend asking themselves is how did Southern pull another improbable victory? It seemed like this was the Panthers turn.

Instead, Wilson, Lemaster and the 17 seniors will leave Orange having gone 35-6 over the last three seasons. Five of the six losses came against Southern.

In 2014, the two undefeated teams met for the Big 8 Championship at Auman Stadium. Orange led 23-14 with 3 minutes to play, plus Spartans quarterback Kendall Hinton was carted off the field with a leg injury that had some of his teammates visibly shaken.

Yet Hinton somehow returned and led Southern to two touchdowns in the final 2:48 to give Southern a 27-23 win.

So does Southern have Orange’s number?

“I think we have each other’s number,” said Robinson. “We’ve just been fortunate enough to make more plays than them. It’s always a tough battle. I respect Bryse. I respect all of their players.”

On Friday night, it was Orange who rallied. After quarterback Jalon Green scored on a 9-yard run, Southern led 10-0 with 8:00 remaining. It seemed that Orange’s defense, which had stymied Green like no other team this year, would have its effort go in vain.

However, Wilson’s last high school game didn’t end quietly. He set up two Orange touchdowns in a span of 3:57, with separate runs of 59 and 57 yards. Drew Lemaster gave Orange the lead on a 31-yard carry around left end with 4:10 remaining.

Just as Hinton did before him, Green played the role of Southern hero, nicely. He converted two 3rd-and-10 situations. After Green was sacked by Orange’s Johnny Flynn for a 10-yard loss with 2:16 remaining, Robinson stepped in to call a trick play: the double pass.

“They took away everything we tried to do on the edge,” said Robinson. “At that point in the game, we had to find something to put it in the end zone. We put in those plays every spring just in case.”

They had run it twice all season. It worked against Hillside for a 49-yard touchdown to Jordan Mackins. The other time was against Orange, a harmless incompletion.

On Friday night, the timing was perfect. Orange’s defensive backs had keyed on Brown, holding him to 64 yards. Brown waited until the time was right to find Kaleb Barfield, who hauled it in at the goal line.

Because of that, Southern will spend this week getting ready for Cleveland in the third round of the 3-AA state playoffs. The Spartans still have a chance for its second 3-AA state championship in three years.

Orange will still be asking the same question: how did Southern do it again to us this time? It used to be the answer was: because of Kendall Hinton.

Perhaps the real answer is: because it’s Southern Durham.

Predictably, heavy rain came on Thursday morning. Predictably, Southern Durham officials moved Friday’s 3-AA state playoff game between Orange and Southern Durham. But it won’t be played at North Carolina Central’s O’Kelly-Riddick Stadium.

Instead, the game has been shifted to Durham County Memorial Stadium, the longtime home of the Northern Durham Knights, which also has a field turf surface as opposed to natural grass.

Southern defeated Northern 36-13 at Durham County Stadium on September 18th. The last time Orange played at DCS, they defeated Northern 18-0 on August 29, 2014.

Our coverage on HillsboroughSports.com starts at 7:20. Join us then.

Here’s what anyone knows for sure about Orange and Southern Durham playing football on Friday night. The game will be in the 2nd round of the 3-AA state playoffs.

You might be asking where will it be played? If you think the answer is Southern Durham High School, you may be wrong.

Last week, Southern moved its first round game with Chapel Hill High School to North Carolina Central University’s O Kelly-Riddick Stadium. Spartan athletic officials cited poor conditions at its own home field for the move.

Which leads us to this week. There’s a chance of thunderstorms Thursday.

The North Carolina High School Athletic Association allows for the host school in the state playoffs to determine where a game will be played. Southern is the higher seed. As of Wednesday night, Orange Coach Pat Moser was unsure where Friday’s game will take place.

We’ll have updates on this situation Thursday. Until then, here’s Coach Moser discussing the rematch with the Spartans.

It’s now an annual ritual for Orange basketbal coach Greg Motley to schedule a full slate, only to have it delayed due to the Panther football team making a deep run in the state playoffs. That will be the case again this year.

The hardwood Panthers were supposed to start its season on Thursday night at home against Northern Durham. That game has been postponed, along with several others. The Orange boys team is now scheduled to starts its season on December 3rd in Raleigh against Sanderson.

However, the Orange girls team will play on Thursday against Northern at home.

While the season hasn’t started yet, Motley already has had to deal with a major setback. To be exact, it happened on September 23rd, when point guard Eryk Brandon-Dean suffered a torn ACL playing football against Southern Durham.

That injury not only ended Brandon-Dean’s football season, but his basketball season, as well. Brandon-Dean has been Orange’s starting point guard for the past two years, often being the centerpiece of a high octane offense that was among the highest scoring in the Big 8 Confernece.

Now, Orange will have to adjust.

Coach Motley discusses the changes and the preparations for the season opener in the video below.

There’s supposed to be an aura of the unknown for teams that make the high school football playoffs.

The vast majority of the time, teams get a new opponent from a different conference in a town several counties away.

For teams in the Big 8 Conference, that’s not the case this year. The first two rounds will be a family affair.

Co-Big 8 Champion Orange, seeded sixth, will face Northwood on Friday night in Hillsborough. The winner faces Co-Big 8 Champion Southern Durham, the third seed, against Chapel Hill.

Oddly enough, it was the Tigers who brought calm, order and extra sleep for three local athletic directors on the last night of the regular season. Chapel Hill upset Northwood 19-17 in Pittsboro, ruining the Chargers chances of tying Southern Durham and Orange for a share of the Big 8 Championship.

If Northwood had won, Orange, Southern and Northwood would have had to draw for seeding in the Big 8. The athletic directors at all three schools had already organized a meeting at an IHOP in Durham Saturday morning in advance.

It never got that far.

Instead, Northwood’s loss led to the Spartans taking the top seed. Southern defeated Orange on September 24th to earn the head-to-head tiebreaker.

Orange defeated Northwood 14-0 on October 1, the first time the Chargers were shut out since 2004. It was played on a Thursday night in advance of Hurricane Joaquin, but that didn’t keep the rain away. The game was played in a downpour. The field was so entrenched with water in the first quarter, it was impossible to see the yard numbers from the press box. The turn left Chargers running back Montel Goods unable to cut back on running plays designed for him to do just that.

As fate would have it, the previous time Northwood was shut out was in 2004 by the Graham Red Devils—coached by Pat Moser, who now coaches Orange.

Drew Lemaster and Alex Long scored Orange’s touchdowns, while the defense held Goods to 53 yards, a season low. Goods came into the game with three consecutive 200-yard rushing efforts.

For Southern Durham, hosting Chapel Hill in the state playoffs is becoming an annual tradition. It’s the fourth time in nine years the Spartans have hosted the Tigers in the playoffs.

The two teams met in the 3rd round of the 2007 4-A playoffs, which Southern won 19-14. Last year, Chapel Hill stunned the Spartans 39-28, ending Southern’s hopes of repeating as 3-AA state champions. It was also the final game for Southern quarterback Kendall Hinton, now at Wake Forest.

We’ll have coverage of Orange-Northwood Friday night at 7:30 here on Hillsboroughsports.com. Listen in.

It may not have been the most climatic finish for Orange, but a share of a conference championship will suffice.

The Panthers romped past Oxford Webb 42-0 on Friday night to finish the regular season 10-1, 5-1 in tbe Big 8. With the win, Orange clinches a share of the Big 8 Championship.

Now, the Panthers wait to see what happens next week with Southern Durham and Northwood, each of whom can tie Orange for first in the Big 8 with a win in their respective season finales.

Southern, who defeated Cedar Ridge 60-3 on Friday, also finishes the regular season against Webb next week.

Northwood defeated Northern Vance on Friday 35-6. Chapel Hill travels to Pittsboro next week to face the Chargers.

If Northwood, Orange and Southern all finish 5-1 in the league, then there will be a drawing to determine the top three seeds for the 3-AA state playoffs. The pairings will be announced next Saturday.

The potential drawing will certainly hold more drama than Orange’s game against the Warriors did on Friday. It was a runaway from the beginning.

Quarterback Jackson Schmid opened the scoring with a five-yard touchdown pass to Drew Lemaster.

In the second quarter, Lemaster completed a 95-yard drive with a 3-yard touchdown run. Schmid tossed his 2nd touchdown pass of the half to Cody Evans from 7-yards away, increasing the Orange lead to 21-0.

In his final regular season football game, Bryse Wilson opened the 2nd half with a 70-yard touchdown run. On the next drive, Wilson scored on an 18-yard run to make it 35-0.

Schmid ended the scoring with a 1-yard plunge on a quarterback sneak.

After going without a touchdown in Orange’s first two games of the year against Person and Northern Durham, Lemaster has now scored touchdowns in nine consecutive games.

Now, after 11 straight weeks of games (12 including the scrimmage against Eastern Alamance on August 14), the Panthers can heal up and prepare for the playoffs.

Skill has taken them to six straight wins and a share of a conference title, but luck probably will determine where their next game will be played.

Our Orange Panther of the Week is senior golf star Amanda Hill. Amanda played for the 3-A state individual championship earlier this week. Amanda led Orange in a meet earlier this year, shooting a 47 in a meet featuring Cardinal Gibbons and Chapel Hill. Amanda loves golf, staying at Occoneechee Golf Course almost daily during the spring and summer. Congratulations to Amanda as she moves on to college.

Though the recent past indicates otherwise, the Orange Panthers don’t have the richest football tradition.

They went 15 years without a winning season from 1993-2007. Their 2008 playoff birth was the first in 17 years.

Before the dark era of Panther football, some rich names played under a series of head coaches that varied in quality.

Alvis Whitted, Class of 1993, was a wide receiver and kick returner. While he had numerous shining moments on the gridiron and track, unquestionably his most infamous came on a rainy Monday night at Chapel Hill High in 1992. With Orange trailing 10-3 in the fourth quarter, Whitted handled a reverse on a kickoff return that caught CHHS totally off guard. With speed that would earn him state championships in the 100 and 200 meters, no Tiger could stop Alvis.

But the rain could.

Whitted slipped and fell at the 1-yard line.

Right on cue, quarterback Mark Pounds fumbled a snap on the subsequent play that the Tigers recovered. Ultimately, the CHHS won and went to the playoffs. It was the first of 17 straight years that the Panthers would miss the postseason.

After a career at N.C. State playing under Mike O’Cain, Whitted was drafted by the Jacksonville Jaguars in 1997. Six years later, his career peaked, winning an AFC Championship with the Oakland Raiders. He even played in Super Bowl XXXVII, falling to Jon Gruden’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

Whitted’s classmate, Damon Scott, was a three-year varsity starter at OHS. He was the tailback for Orange’s only playoff victory of the 90s, a win at Greenville Rose in 1991. After leaving Hillsborough, he became an FCS All-American at Appalachian State. He’s the 2nd leading rusher in school history and a member of the university’s 75th anniversary team.

Of course, the natural lineage between Orange High and Appalachian State is current Mountaineer head coach Scott Satterfield, who led a (brief) revival of Panther football in 1990. The previous three Orange teams won a combined eight games. It likely would have been more if Satterfield hadn’t suffered a season-ending torn ACL injury against Eastern Alamance, the first game of his junior year.

In 1990, the combination of Satterfield, Scott and tight end Kevin Wright paced the Panthers to a 7-3 record, good enough for a three-way tie for 2nd in the PAC-6 conference behind Northern Durham. That season, the PAC-6 had only two playoff slots allotted, and the Panthers stayed home from the playoffs after losing a draw to Northern Vance (Chapel Hill came up with a short straw, as well).

Before Satterfield, Scott and Whitted, there was defensive lineman J.R. Bolden, class of 1988. He immediately grabbed the attention of UNC Head Coach Mack Brown, who had just transplanted himself in Chapel Hill in 1988 after going 6-6 in Tulane. Bolden would play in the Shrine Bowl. He endured the jokes and jeers (often from UNC’s own fan base) of consecutive 1-10 teams, the dog days of Brown’s tenure. His senior year culminated in a Peach Bowl victory over Mississippi State.

Satterfield. Scott. Whitted. Bolden.

There was also Walter Boyd, Class of 1988 who signed with Lou Holtz and Notre Dame. And Marc Latta, a former OHS school class president who would win his own Peach Bowl at N.C. State.

And none of them won a conference championship.

They were victims of bad timing—and Ken Browning.

Indeed, Orange, just like the usual array of challengers to throne, were mired in the dominance of the Northern Knights, who won or shared every PAC-6 Championship from 1984-2001. Browning was the head coach for ten of them, leaving Northern to become an assistant at UNC after winning the 1993 4-A state championship.

Which is why tonight is so important for the Panthers.

After Orange’s 41-19 victory over Chapel Hill last week, Panther coaches and personnel weren’t focused on the result. Athletic Director Ernie Price and head coach Pat Moser got word from a trainer of a final score from Durham: Northwood 28, Southern Durham 26.

How stunning was that development? It was the Spartans’ first loss as a 3-A team in Big 8 Conference regular season play. A 22-game conference winning streak was over. It was Southern’s first conference loss since September 14, 2012, when they fell to Hillside 18-13 in the 4-A PAC-6. The last time Southern lost a conference game to anyone except Hillside was 2008 (another rainy night triumph for Chapel Hill, 10-0).

The attitude on the Orange sideline was a mixture of joy and concern. The Panthers suddenly needed one win over a last-place Oxford Webb team to win a share of the Big 8 Conference championship.

But what about the potential three-way tie for first in the Big 8? It seems most likely that Northwood, Southern and Orange will share the title.

Orange opened the Big 8 with a home loss to the Spartans. They followed with five straight wins, most importantly a soggy 14-0 win at Northwood the week after the Southern loss. Before last week, Orange seemed resigned to its fourth straight runner-up finish. It may not bring a conference championship, but at least the Panthers would likely earn a home game for the 1st round of the state playoffs.

Northwood’s upset changed all that. A three-way tie for first would require another drawing next Friday night (which is Orange’s bye week). A top six seed in the playoffs? Two potential home playoff games? That’s on the table. So is a bottom six seed that could lead to an opening round road game.

Draw the number 3 and the Panthers may not see Auman Stadium again until next September against Riverside.

For now, all of that is hypothetical. Tonight, Orange faces Oxford Webb in Granville County. Forget that the Warriors have lost five straight and have given up 133 points in its last four games. The bottom line is Orange can become a conference champion for the first time in 2008, and only the third time since 1978.

The playoffs can wait. To earn something that so many Orange greats never achieved is enough to play for.

With a 3,7 GPA, Alex Long has already accomplished plenty at Orange High. The fact he scored four touchdowns in Orange’s 40-19 win over Chapel Hill was just gravy. Alex talked with Hillsboroughsports.com about his role in the offense in the absence of Eryk Brandon-Dean and Friday’s game against Oxford Webb.

The Panthers look to claim a share of the Big 8 Conference Championship tonight against Oxford Webb in Granville County. Pat Moser discusses the Warriors, the possibly playoff implications and the health of his team.