When the odds are against you with your season on the line, the best you can do is go out swinging.
That’s what Cedar Ridge seniors Jonovan Wingate and Colton Taylor, in their final game, did against Orange on Monday night.
Facing an Orange team with an infusion of young talent that has taken it to the upper half of the Central Carolina Conference, Wingate injected hope for Cedar Ridge with two early 3-pointers and came away with a team-high 13 points on the night. Taylor added two more treys late.
Once again, it was the Panthers’ depth that carried it past its crosstown rival. This time, it was in the Central Carolina Conference Tournament.
Panther freshman Coleman Cloer scored 23 points while another freshman, Kai Wade, added 17 to lift Orange over Cedar Ridge 83-61 at Panther Gymnasium. The Panthers (17-6) advance to face Person in the semifinals on Wednesday night in Roxboro at 6PM.
Cloer is already at 503 career points with his freshman season not even over yet. He’s had twelve 20-point games this season and has scored in double figures in 23 of 24 games.
Cedar Ridge ends the season 6-16.
It’s the first time in six years that Orange is assured of a state playoff birth while playing in a conference tournament. By his own admission, Panthers coach Derryl Britt, to coin a term used by Queen in the 1980s, wants it all and wants it now. Which is why he was unhappy with his team’s first half.
“We’ve been working on some things and we expected them to work better,” Britt said. “When you’ve beaten a team twice already, it can be hard to get guys up to play sometimes. Our veteran guys haven’t been through postseason play. So trying to get them to understand not to play while watching the scoreboard, just to play the best basketball we can play, is a work in progress.”
In his final game for Cedar Ridge, senior Colton Taylor scored eleven points. It was the end of a whirlwind four months for first-year Red Wolves head coach Mike Jones, a former East Chapel Hill assistant who was hired just
“Jonovan played as well as he’s played all year,” Jones said. “Johnny shot the ball real well tonight. I’m real proud of him and I’m proud of my guys.”
A quick 10-0 burst by Orange early in the second quarter put the game out of reach. It started with a 3-pointer from Cloer, followed by a steal from Xandrell Pennix. Wade notched another steal and drove to the basket for a lay-in while getting fouled by Corin Wingate to take Orange’s lead to 31-16 with 6:46 remaining in the first half. Cloer added another 3-pointer.
Cedar Ridge fought back with a hook shot from Harrison Perel, followed by a 3-pointer from Wingate. Taylor hit five free throws in the second quarter, but the Panthers ended the run with another 3-pointer from Cloer.
It’s the second straight year that Orange has advanced in the CCC Tournament. It was their first home win in a tournament since they defeated Triton in the third round of the 2017 3A State Tournament.
Now that Jones’ first season is over, he will have something that he didn’t have from the moment he was hired: time.
He was forced to hit the ground running in November with barely enough time to get a team established, not to mention losing transfer Neco Clark to Southern Durham. He expects to take a month off before he gathers his team back for offseason workouts.
Despite the record, Jones maintained his enthusiasm during his first year as a head coach.
“It was up-and-down,” Jones said. “It was my first year. We learned a lot. I’ve learned a lot. I’m gonna grow a lot from this year. I think all of my kids, we grew as people. We grew as basketball players and I grew as a coach. I think the mindset is changing. The culture is changing. We don’t go into basketball games expecting to lose anymore. We go up and we fight. That’s the mindset. We’re just trying to get bigger, stronger, faster for next year.”
ORANGE 83, CEDAR RIDGE 61
CEDAR RIDGE: Colton Taylor 11, Landon Dalehite 9, Hayden KIrk 6, Braeden Wilbourn 2, Jonovan Wingate 13, Corin Wingate 4, Harrison Perel 10, Elijah Jenkins 2, Evan Marty 2, Brian Valentine 2.
ORANGE: Xandrell Pennix 7, Kai Wade 17, Ryan Honeycutt 14, Kaleb Barnhardt 4, Coleman Cloer 23, Ryan Moss 3, Isaiah Seymour 7, Malachi Poole 2, Caleb Barreto 4.
3-Pointers: CEDAR RIDGE 6 (Taylor 2, J. Wingate 3, Perel) Orange 6 (Cloer 4, Pennix, Wade, Moss)