Bryse Wilson has become the first Orange Panther to be called up to the Major Leagues.

On Sunday night, Wilson was called by the Atlanta Braves to join the parent club. He will start on Monday night against the Pittsburgh Pirates, completing a meteoric rise up the baseball chain that started with the Florida Fire Frogs of the Florida State League on April 10th.

Wilson’s callup came the day before a homecoming at Durham Bulls Athletic Park. He was supposed to start the 2nd game of a doubleheader for the Gwinnett Stripers against the Bulls in front of hundreds of friends and family from across the area on Tuesday night. Instead, Wilson got word from Braves’ management he was being called up on Sunday night after only three starts with the Stripers.

Wilson, who graduated from Orange in June 2016, will step right in the midst of a pennant chase. The Braves lead the Philadelphia Phillies by a half-game for first place in the National League East. Oddly enough, the Pirates will start another North Carolina product to oppose Wilson. Clayton’s Chris Archer will start for the Bucs, who are five games behind St. Louis for the final wildcard spot in the National League.

On Monday afternoon, Wilson was named the International League Pitcher of the Week. In a 4-3 victory over Louisville on Wednesday, Wilson set the Gwinnett franchise record with 13 strikeouts over eight shutout innings, yielding only one hit. The previous Gwinnett record was set in 2009 by Charlie Horton.

Wilson was a sensation from the first day he set foot on the hill for Dean Dease’s Orange Panthers. He went 11-0 with a 1.05 ERA in his freshman season. During his Orange career, he was 33-4 with a 0.90 ERA in 38 career starts. He had 335 strikeouts with 43 walks.

Wilson committed to play at UNC, but opted to start his minor league career immediately after being drafted in the 4th round of the 2016 Major League Baseball Draft by the Braves. After starting five games with Florida, Wilson was promoted to the Mississippi Braves of the AA Southern League on May 5th. In Mississippi, Wilson made 15 starts and finished 3-5 with a 3.97 ERA. He struck out 89 batters while walking 26.

Braves will make his Major League debut after just 18 days with the Stripers. He won all three of his starts with Gwinnett. His first game in the International League came on August 4th against the Norfolk Tides, when he threw five-and-a-third innings, giving up six runs off seven hits. He struck out eight as the Stripers won 10-6. On August 9th, the Stripers defeated Buffalo 9-5. Wilson earned the victory after throwing six-and-two-thirds innings, giving up seven hits, four runs off seven hits. He struck out three and issued no walks.

Wilson was also a linebacker, running back, wide receiver and backup quarterback for the Orange football team for four varsity seasons. In 2015, Wilson rushed for 1,024 yards and eight touchdowns as the Panthers went 11-2, with both losses coming against Southern Durham. Wilson had several scholarship offers from FCS schools to play football.

Our first Orange Panther of the Week for this academic year is Orange junior outside hitter Emma Clements. Last week, Orange won all three of its matches to start the 2018-19 academic year. That included two victories over South Granville, who won the 2A State Championship in 2015. In the first three games of the season, Clements had 51 kills, including 22 in Thursday’s win at South Granville. She also had six aces, seven blocks and 74 digs. Emma’s life is consumed by volleyball year-round. When she isn’t playing for the Lady Panthers, she’s usually on a volleyball court somewhere in travel ball. Orange returns to action on Monday night to host Eastern Alamance. 

Orange Panther of the Week: Emma Clements

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Kelly Young has played and coached volleyball in elementary school, middle school, high school, recreation and intramurals at N.C. State. She has never seen a 64-point set until last Thursday night. Fortunately for her, she was on the right side of it.

Orange won the 2nd set against South Granville 33-31, then captured the subsequent two sets to complete a season sweep of the Vikings 3-1 in Creedmoor. The Lady Panthers, who defeated the Vikings on Tuesday, are off to a 3-0 start for just the third time in nine years.

“I told my team I’ve never even play in, seen or coached a game into the 30s,” said Young, who just completed her first week as Orange’s volleyball coach. “I think the highest I’ve ever gotten was maybe 28, but never into the 30s”

Junior Emma Clements had a season-high 22 kills, 38 digs, five blocks and one ace. Senior Libby Jones had eleven kills and ten blocks. Junior Kaitlyn Werden finished with 23 assists. Senior Liz LaNier came away with 12 blocks, six kills, and two aces.

Beating South Granville in Hillsborough was one thing, but winning in the spirited confines of Viking Gymnasium was another level of achievement for Young’s team.

“(South Granville) was very solid,” said Young. “I think they played even better than they did here on Tuesday. They’re hitting was on. They’re blocking was on. Each set was point-for-point. We started off a little slow in the first set. But we did not stop hustling and we came back.”

Orange will host Eastern Alamance on Monday night before starting play in the Big 8 Conference. They travel to East Chapel Hill for its conference opener on Tuesday, followed by a home match against Hillside on Thursday.

On the other side of Hillsborough, the Cedar Ridge Red Wolves won its second game of the season by beating Eastern Alamance 3-1 on scores of 19-25, 25-19, 28-26 and 25-21. Junior Emma Downing had eight kills to lead the Red Wolves. Downing also had four blocks. Senior Cody Rabalais finished with seven kills. Freshman Lydia Wood, in just her third game, had six kills. Senior Rachel Tucker finished with 21 kills, while sophomore Marlee Rakouskas had 30 digs.

On Wednesday, Cedar Ridge dropped its first game under new head coach Anna Seethaler to Durham School of the Arts.

After playing three consecutive home games to open the season, Cedar Ridge has three straight road games this week. That includes the conference opener on Tuesday night against Northwood in Pittsboro. On Wednesday, the Red Wolves will face Eastern Alamance in Mebane in a rematch. Then on Thursday, they travel to power Chapel Hill. The Tigers, under head coach Ross Fields, are the two-time defending 3A Eastern Regional Champions. Last season, the Tigers defeated Person 3-1 to win the Eastern Regional title. They fell to North Iredell in five sets in the 3A State Championship match at Reynolds Coliseum in Raleigh. In 2016, Chapel Hill fell to Cox Mill 3-0 in the 3A State Championship match.

Cedar Ridge’s next home match is set for August 28th against Orange.

How does a coach turn a great Thursday night football team into a great Friday night football team?

If that was a simple question to answer, Orange High would have had several state football championships by now. The Panthers haven’t lost a junior varsity game in over three years. At a time when some schools can’t field varsity programs, Orange continues to have healthy numbers for junior varsity just as they’ve done since the late 80s.

The transition to the next level isn’t easy. Some of the players who suited up for Orange during Friday’s 33-24 loss to Northern Nash had never lost a high school football game before. They had certainly never lost to a team that went 1-10 the previous season.

It was Orange’s first season opening loss since 2010, but perhaps it shouldn’t have been surprising. The Panthers have only one returning starter on offense, four on defense.

Last season, Orange captured a share of the Big 8 Championship despite being held under 100 yards passing seven times. There was hope new quarterbacks Travis Ray or Wyatt Jones would make Orange’s spread vertical to start the 2018 season against the Knights.

Summertime 7-on-7 drills can’t adequately prepare a new quarterback for what he will face in the regular season because 7-on-7 games don’t have a pass rush, something that plagued the Orange offensive line and created endless headaches for Ray and Wyatt Jones on Friday night.

Yet that didn’t seem to hamper Orange the previous Friday against Eastern Alamance. The Panthers outscored the Eagles 38-21 in Mebane with Zyon Pettiford scoring two touchdowns.

So what happened against the Knights?

Things started unraveling immediately. Orange lost two starting wide receivers in the opening six minutes. Flanker Freddy Francis, a transfer from Cedar Ridge, injured his foot on the game’s second series and didn’t return. Slot receiver Khaleb Smith, who also plays defensive end, injured his knee after making a catch to convert a 4th down on Orange’s third series. He also didn’t return.

“With Khaleb, we didn’t want to take any chances,” said Orange Coach Van Smith. “It was a problem with his knee. It was just precautionary.”

It was also the theme of the night. Throughout the course of the second half, Panther after Panther left the game because of cramps or other injuries.

“We went from being a team that’s pretty deep with having any of our players playing offense and defense to plugging people in on both sides very quickly,” said Smith.

Entering Friday night, Orange had gone 67-13 since the 2012 season behind players like Bryse Wilson, Payton Wilson, Stone Edwards, Tay Jones, Ryan Sellers, Garrett Cloer, Marvante Beasley, Noah Rogers, Eryk Brandon-Dean and countless others.

Now, all those players have moved on. As with Northern Durham,  Hillside, Southern Durham, Garner and every other program that has had success over several years, there comes a time for transition because that’s how sports evolve. Orange has just started theirs, but Smith has coached successful teams before coming to HIllsborough. He’ll coach more of them at Orange, and he isn’t ready to press the panic button after one game.

“I think going into next week, the guys know that they have to focus,” said Smith. “We had a long talk after the game that we’re inexperienced in a lot of areas. We’re young in a lot of areas. There are eight coaches on the coaching staff. What we need now are our older guys, who are experienced, to become coaches at practice and bring these younger guys along and help get them ready.”

Just three starts into his stint in Triple-A baseball and Bryse Wilson is already setting records.

On Wednesday night, Wilson broke a nearly decade-old Gwinnett Stripers franchise record with 13 strikeouts as Gwinnett defeated the Louisville Bats 4-3 to complete a three-game sweep. Wilson’s broke the old record set by Charlie Moton on April 12, 2009. That game was the fourth in Gwinnett history after the franchise relocated from Richmond, VA.

Wilson struck out seven of the first ten batters he faced. Since being called up from Double-A Mississippi of the Southern League, Wilson has gone 3-0 with a 4.50 ERA for the Stripers.

Wilson has three wins in three starts with the Stripers. In his first AAA outing, he gave up ten hits and seven runs in a 10-7 victory over Norfolk, striking out eight. Last Thursday against Buffalo, Wilson tossed six-and-two-thirds innings, allowing seven hits and four runs in a 9-5 Stripers’ victory.

After spending all of 2017 with the Macon Braves of the South Atlantic League, it’s been a summer of promotions for Wilson. He started the season with the Florida Fire Frogs of the Florida State League. In five starts, Wilson went 2-0 with a 0.34 ERA. He only yielded four runs in the FSL, and only one of those was earned. He struck out 26 with no walks.

On May 7, Wilson was promoted to Mississippi, where his early outings were his toughest of the season.  At one point, Wilson lost five straight starts with a 6.24 ERA through 44 2/3 innings. In each of his five losses, Mississippi scored three runs or less. Things turned around last month.

In the month of July, Wilson led all of minor league baseball with 42 strikeouts, despite being the youngest player in the Southern League at 20 years old. He finished July with a 2-0 record, throwing 32 1/3 innings, allowing three runs, seven walks and a 0.84 ERA.

Wilson is currently the youngest pitcher in AAA baseball by eight months. In his final AA start on July 30th against Birmingham, Wilson had eight strikeouts over five innings. In all five starts in the month of July, Wilson struck out more batters than he pitched innings. Wilson’s longest start in Mississippi came on July 19^th in a 2-0 victory over the Montgomery Biscuts, striking out nine over seven innings. He yielded only three hits and a walk in a no decision.

Wilson spent all of 2017 with the Macon Braves of the South Atlantic League, where he went 10-7 with a 2.50 ERA in 26 starts. He struck out 139 while walking 37.

Wilson, the son of Chad and Tracey Wilson of Hillsborough, is a 2016 graduate of Orange. He was selected in the 4^th round by Atlanta in the 2016 Major League Baseball draft. As a four-year starter on the baseball team, Wilson went 33-4 with a 0.90 ERA in leading the Panthers to four Big 8 Conference Championships. His win total likely would have been higher if it wasn’t for a shoulder injury during his sophomore season, which limited him to four starts on the mound.

Wilson’s father, Chad, is a 1990 graduate of Orange High. Bryse’s brother, Payton, was an All-State linebacker at Orange and will redshirt the upcoming season at N.C. State.

After losing 12 seniors for 2017, it figured to be a rebuilding season for the Orange boys soccer team.

After making the 2nd round of the 3A state playoffs for the first time since 2009, the Panthers lost leading scorer Jamar Davis, All-State wingback Omar Landeros, goalkeeper Noah Miller and midfielder Luke Wirzba.

In the opening week of the 2018 season, Orange dropped both of its opening matches. On Monday night, Orange fell to Carrboro 2-1 in Hillsborough. The Jaguars, who went undefeated in the 2-A Mid-State Conference last season and finished 20-3-2 overall, scored the game-winning goal midway through the 2nd half. Levi Anderson notched Orange’s first goal of the season off a corner kick from Cameron Michalski.

On Wednesday night, Walter Williams defeated the Panthers 4-2. Michalski and Drew Jagentenfl each scored goals for Orange. Williams’ Jorge Alfaro notched two goals, while Chris Gutierrez and Dallin Vandre also scored for the Bulldogs. Junior Romeo Vera tallied three assists. Matthew Morrison made six saves as Williams captured its season-opener. In 2017, the Bulldogs captured a share of the 3A Mid Piedmont Conference and finished 19-3-1.

Orange will make back-to-back road trips next week, starting Tuesday at Eastern Alamance. On Wednesday, the Panthers face Person in Roxboro.

Cedar Ridge started its season on Monday night with a 6-2 loss to Eastern Alamance in Mebane. Sophomore Gustavo Salas scored a hat trick for the Eagles. Cedar Ridge received goals from Reese Weaver on an assist from Dean Allen. Frank Orellana notched an unassisted goal for the Red Wolves. Cedar Ridge will play at Durham School of the Arts on Thursday night, then travel to Carrboro on Monday night. Cedar Ridge opens its home schedule on Wednesday against Graham.

Elsewhere in girls tennis, both Orange and Cedar Ridge opened the season with young teams. Going into the season, Cedar Ridge Coach Lennie Corbett figured to have the services of Ivy Garner, a rising sophomore who finished runner-up in the 3A Mideast Regionals last season. However, Garner transferred to Eno River Academy last week to focus on her main sport, soccer.

Cedar Ridge was also shorthanded when they fell to Bartlett Yancey 8-1 in Monday’s opener as two starters were on vacation. Olivia Ward, who started during the Red Wolves 2016 Big 8 Championship run, won in #1 singles. On Tuesday, Eastern Alamance defeated the Red Wolves 7-2.

The Orange girls tennis team started the season with a 9-0 loss to Eastern Alamance on Monday. On Wednesday, the Lady Panthers fell to Person 5-4.

Against the Rockets, freshman Jera Hargrove won at #1 singles. Junior Sydney Allison earned her first win of the season at #5 singles.  In doubles action, the team of Lindsey Jouannet and Morgan Gwynn won at #2, while Allison teamed with junior Gaylaw Eh for a victory at #3.

Next week, Orange will host Eastern Alamance on Monday. Then comes the Big 8 opener against defending conference champion East Chapel Hill on Wednesday.

As for Cedar Ridge, they travel to Eastern Alamance on Monday, then head north to face Bartlett Yancey on Wednesday. They host Roxboro Community School on Thursday, its only home match of the week.

On Friday night, Zyon Pettiford will make his varsity debut when Orange faces Northern Nash at Auman Stadium. Pettiford had an impressive, though unofficial, start to his varsity career last Friday in a scrimmage against Eastern Alamance in Mebane. Pettiford made six receptions for 107 yards and two touchdowns against the Eagles. Pettiford is also likely to be a starter this winter for the Orange basketball team under new head coach Derryl Britt. 

Orange WR Zyon Pettiford Discusses Eastern Alamance Scrimmage, Friday’s Opener vs. Northern Nash

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The Orange volleyball team won its home opener on Tuesday night, defeated 2A power South Granville 3-1. Liz LaNier had a strong overall game for the Panthers, who captured the last two sets. Orange is 2-0 under new head coach Kelly Young. They have a rematch set for Thursday night against the Vikings in Creedmoor.

Orange Senior Middle Hitter Liz LaNier Discusses the Lady Panthers Win over South Granville

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