MEBANE: Injury. Illness. Fatigue. Defections.
The Orange men’s basketball team has dealt with all of that over the past month, but they’ve been on a mission to win the Central Conference championship since they started the league campaign against Southern Alamance on December 14.
On that night, the Panthers came back from five points down with :28.5 remaining in regulation to beat the Patriots. On Friday night, they roared out to a 21-3 lead against Eastern Alamance and never trailed to close out the regular season.
Despite being unable to practice all week due to illness, sophomore Coleman Cloer scored 31 points as the Panthers defeated the Eagles 79-74. It was Orange’s fifth straight win over the Eagles dating back to 2021.
Junior Xandrell Pennix added 15 points, including five in the fourth quarter as the Panthers closed the league campaign 11-1, winning the conference championship by three games.
In Orange’s twelve conference games this year, they didn’t trail in eight of them.
Orange will receive a bye into the semifinals of the Central Conference Tournament. They will play again on Tuesday night at 7:30 at Person High School against the winner of Walter Williams vs. Person, who will face off in Burlington on Monday night.
Freshman Jayden Adams led a spirited comeback by the Eagles with 21 points. Eastern Alamance (16-8, 8-4) trailed by 18 points just four minutes into the game, but fought back to reduce Orange’s lead to 42-36 by halftime.
It was the most anticipated Panthers-Eagles basketball game since they met in the 3rd round of the 2014 3A State Playoffs. There were no empty seats to be found at tipoff along the seven rows of green and gold bleachers on either side of the gym. Anyone who arrived before the women’s game ended at Tal Jobe Gymnasium were forced to watch standing along the walls of the end zones or standing in the lobby peering over visitors’ shoulders.
With seven days between games and a conference championship already secured, it would have been understandable for Orange to come out flat. Especially considering Cloer, Pennix and Freddie Sneed were sick all week. Pennix and Sneed practiced only on Thursday.
“We’re just passing stuff around right now,” said Orange coach Derryl Britt. “It’s just that time of year. We just have to fight through it.”
Instead, for the second straight game, Orange was hell on wheels at the opening tip. Wade scored seven of the first nine points, then Cloer added two deep 3-pointers, including a 25-footer that had several fans jumping out on the floor in disbelief. Orange led 23-7 at the end of the first quarter.
“We got off to a great start,” Britt said. “We let Eastern back into the game, but we settled down, weathered down and did all the things we needed to do to win.”
Adams and senior Jalen Alston trigger a comeback, each hitting two 3-pointers in the second quarter. Alston, on his senior night, scored seven of his ten points in the second quarter. Eastern’s Javier Tinnen drilled an outside shot to cut Orange’s lead to six before Cloer sank another three-pointer.
In the third quarter, Sneed picked off an entry pass to spark an inferno. Wade sent an off-the-backboard ally-oop to Cloer, who slammed it down with two hands. Moments later, after Adams missed a shot, Sneed rebounded and found Cloer for another ally-oop, where he laid it in to Orange’s lead to 13.
Sneed, in the absence of senior center Ryan Honeycutt, scored ten points off the bench.
“With Honeycutt out, it’s a blow,” Britt said. “But Freddie did the things tonight that added up to a victory. He makes us more athletic and faster on defense.”
In the fourth quarter, Pennix drove behind-the back down the lane and was knocked off balance by Eastern’s A.J. Weaver. Pennix, not even looking at the basket, threw the ball up and it went off the backboard–and in. The three-point play but the Panthers ahead by 13.
Orange junior Michael Clark hit a late three-pointer to put Orange in control in the final minute.
As Eastern attempted a late rally, Eagles coach Parrish Walker inserted freshman guard Hunter Eichmann, the son of former Orange player Sean Eichmann and grandson of former Orange High school trigonometry teacher Gary Eichmann.