It’s a good thing the softball scoreboard at Cedar Ridge High School was installed only five years ago.
If it was any older, every fuse on it would have been blown out Tuesday night.
In the Central Conference Tournament semifinals, Orange and Cedar Ridge combined for 29 runs, 26 hits, one monstrous comeback by Orange and a game-winning RBI by Laci Sykes.
After Cedar Ridge went into the bottom of the seventh trailing 14-13, Sykes knocked in Parker Kennedy on a grounder to second base. Kennedy beat the throw from Orange’s Natalie Roberson for the game-winning run to send Cedar Ridge past Orange 15-14 in the Central Conference Tournament semifinals.
The Red Wolves will face Eastern Alamance on Thursday night in Mebane. The Eagles, who beat out Cedar Ridge by one game for first place to take the regular season crown, edged Western Alamance 2-1 in the other semifinal.
“Hats off to them, they’re one heck of a team,” said Cedar Ridge Softball Coach Allan Byrd, who earned his 100th career win against Orange two weeks ago. “They battled back and we faltered for an inning or two, kinda played sloppy. But at the end of the day, these kids came together and played as a team.”
On a zany night, Orange trailed 12-4 at the end of the third inning. Junior Katie Carden triggered a comeback with a grand slam in the fourth inning. Orange scored ten of the next eleven runs, including an inside the park home run by Karley Neighbours in the fifth, immediately followed by an RBI single from Sadie Cecil to score Hayleigh Hammond to cut the Red Wolf lead to 12-10.
Trailing 13-11 going into the top of the seventh, Cecil knocked in Hammond again with a line drive to left field. Cecil took second on the throw and advanced to third off a wild pitch. Orange freshman Molly Kate Ollis lofted a pop-up that Cedar Ridge second baseman Brittani Goddard caught on the edge of the outfield grass. Tempting fate, Cecil tagged up from third with the ball barely 80 feet from home plate, but slid in safely to tie the game. After Carden walked, Orange catcher Allie Carden drilled a double that one-hopped the wall in right centerfield, scoring Katie Carden from first base to give Orange a 14-13 lead, its first advantage since it was 3-2 in the first inning.
Facing freshman Lexi Bowes, Orange’s third pitcher of the night, Cedar Ridge remained poised. Mia Best led off with a double that banged off the black tarp along the outfield fence. Senior Kimber Shambley tied the game at 14-14 with another double that rolled to the outfield wall.
Parker Kennedy, representing the game-winning run, replaced Shambley at second base as a courtesy runner. Charlotte Lowry skied a double to left field, but Kennedy was held at third after she got a late jump. With the bases loaded following an intentional walk to Rylee Capps, Sykes grounded a ball to Roberson at second, whose throw to the plate wasn’t in time as Kennedy slid in safely to end the game at the two-hour and 51-minute mark.
Coming off a win over Person on Monday night in the quarterfinals, Orange scored three runs in the first. Cecil, with the sun setting in her eyes well beyond left field, roped a double off the fence. Cecil, Ollis and Katie Carden all touched the plate in the opening frame.
Cedar Ridge erased that with seven runs in the first inning, keyed by a grand slam by Capps. Goddard delivered a two-run double that plated Sykes and Madeline Galindo-Woodring. Goddard would score off an error.
The Red Wolves built its lead to 12-4 after five runs in the third inning, starting when Galindro-Woodring reached on a triple that edged down the left field line. Raegan Remaly, Shambley, Lowry and Capps would all drive in runs in the inning.
Eastern Alamance took two games from Cedar Ridge during a regular season that had curious timing. Cedar Ridge first faced the Eagles in its third game of the year on March 3, where the Red Wolves led 4-1 going into the seventh inning but lost 8-4 in eight innings. Their last meeting was on March 21, where the Red Wolves had a 4-3 lead going into the sixth before the Eagles scored three runs in the sixth.
“If this team hits the ball like I know we can hit the ball, we’re winning most games,” Byrd said. “We can play with anybody that we’ve played all year. We’ll travel to Mebane on Thursday and give it everything we have. We want it.”