Midway through the 2018 season, it appears the Orange football team has its final schedule set. At least, until the next rainout.
On Thursday night, Orange announced that the Panthers will travel to Randleman on November 2 at 7PM. Randleman replaces Chapel Hill on Orange’s schedule. On August 13, four days before the season opener, Chapel Hill announced it would not field a varsity football team because of a lack of participation.
Randleman is a 2A team that plays in the PAC 7 Conference. They’re currently 5-0 overall, 1-0 in conference play. In 2016, the Tigers won the PAC 7 Conference Championship with a perfect 6-0 record. They finished 11-2 after advancing to the 3rd round of the 2AA State playoffs, where they lost to East Duplin 21-13. Randleman was held under 30 points just twice all of last season, finishing the season with seven consecutive wins by a cumulative total of 328-48.
So far this season, Randleman has defeated Asheboro, Southwestern Randolph, Ledford (who handed Randleman its only regular season last season), and Union Pines. Last week, the Tigers won its PAC 7 Conference opener over Wheatmore 28-14 in Trinity.
Through the course of this week, Orange has gone from nine scheduled games for the 2018 season to eleven. On Monday morning, the North Carolina High School Athletic Association extended the regular season to November 9, citing the number of schools in Coastal and Sandhills Counties that have yet to resume classes because of Hurricane Florence. Within hours of that announcement, Orange rescheduled the Riverside game that was postponed on September 14 because of Florence. The Riverside-Orange game will be the regular season finale for the Panthers.
Because of Cedar Ridge and CHHS not fielding varsity teams and Hurricane Florence, this Orange team will have the unusual distinction of finishing the season with three straight nonconference opponents. On October 26, Eastern Guilford will visit Orange. The Wildcats replaced Cedar Ridge on the schedule the day after the Red Wolves canceled the varsity football season in June.
It was important for the Panthers to get an eleventh game scheduled for playoff purposes. Currently, Orange is 1-3 going into Friday’s night contest against Southern Durham, who have dropped two straight to the Panthers, both at Spartan Stadium.
Orange isn’t the only team playing football schedule gymnastics. On Thursday afternoon, the Cedar Ridge junior varsity team announced that its game against Northern Durham, which was suspended by lightning on Wednesday night, will resume on November 5 at Cedar Ridge Stadium. The Red Wolves and the Knights completed the first quarter tied 6-6 before lightning stopped the proceedings.
There’s no word yet on if Cedar Ridge’s game against Northwood, which was supposed to take place last week, will be rescheduled. The contest was slated for Pittsboro but was postponed because of unplayable grounds at Northwood High.
Despite being the final week of September, Cedar Ridge has only completed three games this season, sporting a 1-2 record. The Red Wolves defeated Rocky Mount Preparatory on September 6 for its first win on the gridiron in over a year.
All Orange varsity and Cedar Ridge junior varsity games can be heard on Hillsboroughsports.com.