There are stories that the Orange softball class of 2023 will tell teenagers in 30 years that may seem like something from the planet Mars.
For Carson Bradsher, Serenity McPherson, Kelsey Tackett, Savannah Wynne, Brianne Foster, and Apryl Terrell, they lost almost all of their freshman season because of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Bradsher, McPherson, Wynn and Tackett won a conference championship together during a 2021 season that was greatly scaled down, limited to only 13 games. Yet the Lady Panthers became the first team in school history to go undefeated during the regular season.
While that season ended in a disappointing playoff loss to Southwestern Randolph, Wynne will forever have the tale of finishing the game despite suffering a broken nose in the 1st inning when a ball hit her in the face in left field. Afterwards, Wynne walked into the emergency room at a nearby hospital with her uniform on, then walked out and went back to class the next day because–well, because she’s a softball player.
Last spring, the seniors joined a new conference together that increased the competition level to an incredibly high level, one that Orange is still working to meet night in and night out.
The Lady Panthers went into spring break after a 4-2 road win over Person, who reached the State Quarterfinals last year. After a week off, Orange struggled to find the same form in a home loss to Falls Lake and a flat performance in a 10-3 defeat at the hands of defending 3A State Champion Eastern Alamance in Mebane.
On Thursday night, the six Orange seniors were honored against their crosstown rival, Cedar Ridge. Even after the Lady Panthers won 4-1 to improve to 7-4 overall, first-year coach Rachel Peel still desired more with the second half of the season here and now.
“As long as our bats are coming through, our defense has been great this season,” Peel said. “We just have to make sure we’re hitting line drives and we’re making solid contact. Right now, we’re just hitting a lot of pop-ups. We run-ruled Cedar Ridge the last time we played them. It was way too close for comfort tonight.”
Junior Caden Robinson had a career-high 16 strikeouts to improve to 5-1 with a 1.86 ERA.
Cedar Ridge sophomore Charlotte Lowry had a strong overall performance. She limited Orange to four hits in the final six innings and finished with three strikeouts.
McPherson put Orange at ease early with a solo homer in the first inning that sailed over the left field wall. It was her second dinger of the year.
Bradsher, who finished 3-for-3, stroked a single to centerfield in the next at-bat. Robinson sprayed a 0-1 fastball opposite field to the left field corner, Bradsher raced around the bases with blinding speed to score, then Robinson followed after the Cedar Ridge outfielder missed the cutoff lady on the relay.
Cedar Ridge opened with back-to-back hits from Mia Best and Reagan Simmons. Then Robinson settled in and retired 16 consecutive Red Wolves, strikeout out 12 of them. She struck out the side in the fourth.
Simmons, a sophomore, struck back in the sixth with a solo homer that went a long way over the right field wall. It was Simmons third home run.
Once again, Bradsher was responsible for an insurance run in the third. With two out, Bradsher beat out a throw on an infield single, went to second on a passed ball. Robinson reached on a hard grounder to Simmons and shortstop. As the Red Wolves tried to throw out Robinson, Bradsher never stopped moving around the bases and slid in feet-first into home plate to put Orange ahead 4-0.
Orange will have a rematch with Person on Tuesday night in Hillsborough. Peel hopes that the lessons from two weeks ago will come in handy in a crucial rematch against the Rockets.
“I learned last week that we need to make Spring Break practices mandatory,” Peel said. “We just came off a long break sort of cold. We went into back-to-back games without practicing. A bunch of girls enjoyed themselves on Spring Break and weren’t ready to play. It hurt us bad.”