For the 2nd time this season, Mitch Portman scored 15 points in a game. He did it last Thursday in Orange’s victory over Chapel Hill. He also scored 15 on December 28 in the Panthers’ 72-70 victory over Piedmont Classical in the first round of the Eastern Guilford Holiday Classic in Gibsonville.
All in all, the 2016 fall sports season has to be considered a solid one in Hillsborough.
Cedar Ridge and Orange each had one of its athletic teams win a Big 8 conference championship. There were four teams from each school (Cedar Ridge boys soccer, Orange volleyball, Cedar Ridge boys cross country and Orange girls cross country) that finished runner-up to Chapel Hill in the Big 8. Each of those Chapel Hill teams either won a state championship or played for one.
If there was one thing lacking, it was the amount of upsets. Perhaps because Orange and Cedar Ridge were evenly matched against each other or their league rivals in most sports.
In retrospect, there’s one match that stands out in bright, neon letters as the biggest upset of autumn: Cedar Ridge volleyball beating Chapel Hill on October 6.
The peculiar part of the Red Wolves’ upset is that Cedar Ridge had swept CHHS in 2015, each time in four games.
But Cedar Ridge didn’t merely undergo changes after the 2015 season, where they went 24-4, had a perfect Big 8 record and advanced to the fourth round of the 3A state playoffs.
They had a total extreme makeover.
On paper, it didn’t seem that Cedar Ridge’s losses would be massive after 2015. There were only two seniors: outside hitters Asha Barnes and Courtney Eckmann. Both valuable players who would be tough to replace, but there seemed to be enough players returning to make CRHS a factor in the Big 8 again.
Then Coach Charlie Oakley resigned in the winter to focus on starting a family. Rising senior Lily Henry suffered a torn ACL in the offseason. After playing in all 28 games in 2015, she was limited to 12 in 2016. Three rising seniors opted not to play volleyball to focus on other duties that come with being a senior in high school.
Just like that, the Red Wolves were without four starters and the head coach who took them to their greatest heights.
That’s only part of what made the win over CHHS so surprising.
Going into the match, Cedar Ridge had lost six of its last eight matches (not counting a forfeit victory over Bartlett Yancey on September 21). They had stumbled to a 4-6 start in Big 8 play, while the Tigers were riding an 11-game winning streak.
However, there were signs that Cedar Ridge was capability of pulling the upset in the first meeting with CHHS on September 13. The Red Wolves extending the match to five games, forcing the decisive fifth game with a 25-23 victory in the fourth set. The Tigers took the fifth 15-13 to improve to 9-3.
A month later, Cedar Ridge didn’t need a fifth set. Or a fourth one.
The Red Wolves rolled 25-20, 25-20 and 25-23. Meg Anderson and Alexis Dumain each had nine kills, while Kayla Robinette registered seven. Dumain, Anderson and Henry each had three aces. Linsday Thompson had a team-leading 18 digs, while Henry finished with 19 assists.
Cedar Ridge missed the playoffs and finished 8-14. Chapel Hill would play for the 3A state championship three weeks later against Concord Cox Mill in Reynolds Coliseum.
It wasn’t the year the Red Wolves wanted, but they can always lay claim to the biggest upset of 2016 in Hillsborough.
The only thing that eluded Trent Gill over the fall was a day off.
From August 1st until November 5th, there was usually some duty to tend to. Twice a week, there were soccer games. When he wasn’t playing on the pitch, he was practicing on it. Either that or he was practicing with the football team, since he was the Red Wolves placekicker.
There was little time to rest on Saturdays, since he brand quickly grew inside scouting circles. He took recruiting trips to Duke University, N.C. State, Wofford and North Carolina Central, where he received a scholarship offer.
Cedar Ridge scored 21 touchdowns in its first three games against Carrboro, Jordan-Matthew and East Chapel Hill. During that span, Gill converted 20-of-21 extra points and four field goals, the longest 42 yards against the Jaguars.
In the opening two weeks of the season, Gill led the country in extra points. He finished 64-fo-71 on extra points and 12-of-15 on field goals. Plus, he averaged 36 yards per punt.
And football may not even be his best sport.
In his final season on the Cedar Ridge boys soccer team, he led the squad in goals (16), assists (10), and points (42). He had two hat tricks in 2016, including four goals in an 8-1 victory over Durham School of the Arts.
That game, however, couldn’t touch the satisfaction of the Red Wolves’ result on October 3rd.
Gill scored a hat trick as the Red Wolves edged the Panthers 4-3 at Panther Soccer Field. Jake Brown added insurance for the Red Wolves, while Rene Castellanos added an assist on Gill’s opener.
Gill also scored Cedar Ridge’s only goal in a 1-1 draw against Orange on September 7th. The Red Wolves’ goalkeeper, Justin Callemyn, notched five saves to complete the draw.
The Red Wolves have gone 4-0-1 in its last five games against the Panthers. While the Orange program has progressed in recent years, its last win over Cedar Ridge came on September 30, 2014.
Gill’s leadership put Cedar Ridge on the brink of a Big 8 Confernece Championship. They finished second behind Chapel Hill, who went all the way to the 3A State Championship game, where they lost to Marvin Ridge at N.C. State’s Dail Soccer Complex.
Cedar Ridge would make the playoffs for the 2nd straight season, thanks in part to a young man who lost about as often as he had a day off.
Quick: What was the only football game that Orange trailed at the half in 2016?
Southern Durham? Nope. Havelock? Scoreless tie in the first half. Riverside? Close. Northern Vance? Not quite.
It was Northwood, almost a forgotten game for a variety of reasons. First of all, it was played on a Monday night, just a week after Orange’s demolishment of Southern Durham. A rainstorm that was expected to be heavy delayed the game to Monday, though other neighboring schools played that Friday night.
Perhaps all of those factors led to Orange’s offense being lethargic in the first half. The Panthers committed turnovers on its first two drives and were stopped on fourth-and-short situations twice in the second quarter.
While Northwood only had two first downs in the first half, they did get a 31-yard field goal from Arthur Gonclaves with 3:29 remaining in the first quarter. It came after linebacker Michael Hayes recovered a fumble at the Orange 38-yard line.
As Orange did so often in the second halves of games, they rode their powerful running attack to victory against the Chargers. But this was no ordinary ball control game. This was an offense so conservative, it would make Ted Nugent blush.
In the second half, Orange ran 37 plays and picked up 13 first downs. Northwood ran eights plays with zero first downs.
Payton Wilson, a wingback who really was utilized more as a wide receiver in the final month of the season, rushed for 82 yards in the second half alone. He finished with 155 rushing yards, and another 33 yards receiving.
It led to Orange winning 19-3 behind another strong defensive performance, which would be the Panthers trademark in 2016. In the regular season, Orange’s defense yielded just three touchdowns and mounted a 24-quarter streak without giving up a touchdown.
To put that in perspective, that’s six whole regulation games without giving up an offensive touchdown (Northern Durham did score a defensive TD off a fumble return for a touchdown on August 26).
As the season unfolded, it was hardly the final highlight for Wilson or the Orange defense in a year that will forever live in Panther lore.
When training camp started in August for Cedar Ridge’s football team, they had something that was missing in 2015.
Stability.
Entering 2015, the Red Wolves thought that former Burlington Cummings Coach Steve Johnson would be their new head coach. It certainly appeared to be a quality fit. Johnson led the Cavaliers to two state championships and was an assistant on three others.
Yet a month after his hiring was announced, Johnson suffered a thoracic aortic aneurysm in late August. He never coached a game at Cedar Ridge.
Of course, the Cedar Ridge players didn’t know that at the time. They came and went from practice day in and day out, running drills, preparing for games and wondering if Johnson would ever return. Offensive coordinator Scott Loosemoore coached the team in 2015 on an interim basis.
This year, there was no wonderin who the head coach was. Loosemoore was named the permanent coach early in 2016, but there were plenty of holes to fill. Quarterback Payton Pappas had graduated.
So Loosemoore remolded the team in a design that fit the parts he had. The spread offense was scrapped, a bold move in modern high school football. Instead, Loosemoore installed a wishbone setup led by running back London Saunders, Shemar Miles and Lucas Baldwin.
Sophomore Phillip Berger took over at quarterback.
Cedar Ridge opened 3-0 for the first time in school history, beating Carrboro, Jordan-Matthews and East Chapel Hill by a combined score of 162-12.
Unfortunately, the Red Wolves hopes of making the playoffs were dashed on the final play of the 4th game of the year against Riverside. As the Pirates ran out the clock of a 20-3 win, a toss sweep spilled over to the Riverside sideline and led to a fight. Each team had three players ejected from the game, which led both teams to be barred from the state playoffs.
Cedar Ridge immediately appealed, but didn’t have video footage to turn over to the North Carolina High School Athletic Association. The best evidence they could produce was still photographs, which wasn’t enough.
Cedar Ridge would spin the final half the season playing for nothing more than pride, which was crushing for a team that hadn’t produced a winning record since 2010. In the wake of the NCHSAA ban, several players quit the team to begin preparing for winter sports.
Those who remained and fought can look back and said they were members of Cedar Ridge’s first winning football season in six years.
The Red Wolves went into its final game of the season 5-5 with a road trip to Northern Vance, who had also been barred from the postseason after a fight against Warren County.
The Vikings had proven to be a tough opponent in Henderson. They held Orange to two touchdown in a 14-0 loss only three weeks before the season finale. But the Red Wolves served notice against the Vikings they wouldn’t wait a day longer without a winning season.
The Red Wolves stromed out to a 27-0 lead and defeated the Red Wolves 41-21.
In his final game, Saunders scored two touchdowns. Senior running back Montae Kee rushed for 105 yards, a career-high in his swan song.
Listen to the Orange girls try to remain undefeated against Northern Durham LIVE RIGHT HERE!
It’s always special to beat your crosstown rival. It’s even sweeter when you haven’t defeated them in four years.
Those were the circumstances that the Orange volleyball team found itself in on September 27th against Cedar Ridge. In the first match between the two teams on September 1st, the Red Wolves easily disposed of the Panthers 3-1, its seventh consecutive victory over Orange.
It wasn’t so much that Cedar Ridge had enjoyed an advantage over Orange. It was that they had become dominant. During its seven-game winning streak, the Red Wolves had won 21 out of 25 games against OHS. Four of the seven wins were sweeps.
The 2015 Red Wolves captured the Big 8 Championship in dominant fashion, finishing unbeaten in conference play. They even defeated Carrboro, who would go on to win the 2-A State Championhip a year later.
On September 27, Orange wasn’t just victorious against Cedar Ridge. They were due.
After dropping the first game 25-22, the Panthers won the final three sets 25-21, 26-24 and 25-18 to send the students inside Jim King Gymnasium into a frenzy, rushing the floor and gathering for a photo with the team.
Bailey Lucas had 13 kills with a kill percentage of 52%, a,one with 22 assists. Jordan Lloyd, who would sign with Division 3 Brevard College in December, finished with eight kills, 25 digs and an ace.
Unanimously, Lloyd, Macy Hughes, Mileah Shriner, Julia Lovingood and Eva Porter would call the win the highlight of their Orange careers.
The Panthers would go on to finish second in the Big 8, finishing only behind Chapel Hill. The Tigers, under first-year head coach Ross Fields, would claim the 3-A Eastern Regional Championship and face Concord Cox Mill for the state championship at Reynolds Coliseum in Raleigh.
Orange made the state playoffs, falling in the first round against Cleveland. They finished 11-10, 8-4 in the Big 8.
