The championship banners inside Orange High School’s gymnasium honors every sport that has captured a title.
A stranger doesn’t have to look long to figure out which sport has been the most successful in terms of conference championships. The banner for the wrestling team is adorned with emblems of two wrestlers grappling position. Beneath each emblem is the year of the championship. They stretch up towards the roof and all the way down the floor.
The Orange wrestling team has just added another title to its banner.
Last Wednesday, the Panthers defeated Person 43-25 inside Rocket Gymnasium in Roxboro to complete an undefeated Central Carolina Conference season. The Panthers were 16-0 coming out of the match going into the Havelock Duals over the weekend. They finished 6-0 in the CCC.
For a squad with seniors Sam Crawford, Dillon Heffernan, Elijah Acosta, and Hugo Vazquez, it would have been an upset for the Panthers to fall short of a conference championship this year. Orange reached the Eastern Regional championship match in the 3A State Dual Team Playoffs in 2022, where they fell to Croatan in the finals.
The matchup with Person was a battle of teams undefeated in conference action. The Rockets (9-4)went in with a 5-0 conference record after beating Eastern Alamance 79-0 on January 4.
Sam Crawford started the night on a strong note with a pin in the third period against Davis Garrett. Crawford, who finished fourth in the Tiger Holiday Classic in December at Chapel Hill High, was 23-7 for the season after his 17th pin of the year.
Orange junior Andre Hill, who is 29-6, scored his 19th pin of the year over Patrick Anderson at 170 pounds to put the Panthers ahead 12-3. Hill, an offensive tackle in football, finished third at the Eastern Alamance Eagle Invitational in Mebane on December 17.
After Malaki Newton preserved a decision victory for the Rockets at 182 pounds, Orange’s lead was reduced to 12-6. Acoya Isley, who is 25-2 on the season, earned a decision at 195. Elijah Acosta scored a pin over Gavin Jones at 220 pounds to increase Orange’s lead to 21-6.
That advantage was reduced to 21-12 after Person wins by Fabian Rivera (106 pounds) and Najonii Aguilar (113). Orange’s Quadir Medley took a victory at 126 pounds to start a string of four straight Orange individual wins that paved the way for a team championship.
Orange notched three consecutive pins. At 126 pounds, Braden Crawford earned his 14th pin of the season when he defeated Person’s Taveon Moss. Junior Jared Hutchins got a pin at 132 pounds, which secured the Panther victory. Dillon Heffernan, who won at the Quentin Crosby Invitational at Dudley High School on January 7, ended the night with another pin. Heffernan went into last weekend with a 26-3 record on the season.
The conference championship is Orange’s 19th conference title in the last 20 years. That stretches across three classifications dating back to Orange’s days as a 4A team. The Chapel Hill Tigers ended Orange’s run of 16 consecutive conference championships in 2020, a month before the pandemic hit.
Orange is now guaranteed to be the #1 seed from the Central Carolina Conference going into the 3A State Dual Team Championships, which will start on January 28. The field for the tournament will be announced on January 26.
Before Orange focuses on the State Dual Tournament, there will be the first Central Carolina Conference individual tournament set for this Saturday at Orange High. Last year was supposed to be the first CCC Tournament at Eastern Alamance, but the event was canceled because of winter weather.
The conference championship is the fifth for head coach Spenser Poteat, who took over for Bobby Shriner in 2017. Shriner now works with the University of North Carolina wrestling team. Poteat wrestled for Shriner as a Panther student in the 1990s.
Over the weekend, Orange dropped its first dual match of the year in the Havelock Duals against Currituck County is what was reportedly a controversial result on several levels.