Cedar Ridge Volleyball

There were good omens in Raleigh on the coolest weekend of the fall at N.C. State University.

The last time I had parked in an area near Reynolds Coliseum on the N.C. State campus, it was June 2017. As I got out of my car on Saturday, instinctively my head turned towards centerfield at the Dail Softball Stadium. It brought to mind the night of June 2, 2017. I could still see a yellow softball flying in the dead of a summer night that Mia Davidson blasted over the centerfield wall in the 7th inning to put Orange ahead 3-2 against Piedmont in game one of their best-of-three 3A State Championship series.

It didn’t take like for other memories from that weekend to flash back. Jaden Hurdle making a huge diving catch in foul ground while Davidson watched on helplessly with eyes big enough to resemble a Simpsons character. Abby Hamlett, in the last at-bat of her Orange career, lacing a two-run double the following day in the second and deciding game. There was also Abby’s torn emotions in the postgame interview, overjoyed about being a member of Orange’s first female team in the 56-year history of the school to win a state championship in any sport, but saddened she would never play with her teammates again.

So as I got the equipment out of the car, I knew there was going to be more memories by the end of the day. I just didn’t know if they would be good ones.

***

Have I mentioned that I’m only a casual fan of the progressive rock band Yes?

Considering my favorite band, Rush, was so heavily influenced by Yes, I really should be a hardcore fan. But I’m not.

(Editor’s Note: this is the part of the column where I sound really old. I apologize to the younger readers who don’t know who Yes is. Trust me, they earned their spot in the Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame. Three weeks ago at the Appalachian State-Coastal Carolina football game, about 20,000 of the 31,000 fans at Kidd Brewer Stadium sang along to a Luke Bryan song played over the speakers between timeouts. Naturally, I stood in silence like I was the only person at the comedy club that didn’t get the joke. That’s a pretty lonely feeling. I’m sure Carson Bradsher, who was in the student section of her future college that night, knew every word.)

After Cedar Ridge won the 3A State Volleyball Championship, there were plenty of good memories to share over this website, just as many as four years ago after Orange’s triumph.

I also thought about my favorite Yes song “Close to the Edge,” certainly an acquired taste that you won’t hear on modern corporate radio because it’s 18 minutes and 43 seconds long.

As I got home to prepare for a long night of writing and posting, I looked up the meaning of the song by the group’s (now former) singer, Jon Anderson. As I digested it, it brought to mind more memories of everything that we got back, lost, cherished and celebrated since mid-August.

***

“Sudden cause shouldn’t take away the startled memory/ all in all, the journey takes you all the way.” According to Anderson, that lyric means: “The idea is that life is an ongoing journey, and you have to enjoy it.”

The state championship that Cedar Ridge captured on Saturday is hard enough to win. You have to stay healthy. You have to have a few lucky bounces. Most of all, you have to deserve to win, something that head coach Fiona Cunningham made sure of by scheduling the most strenuous set of nonconference opponents she could find.

The state championship banner that Cedar Ridge won will hang inside Red Wolves Arena forever, long after the current group of Red Wolves graduate. I’ll remember how skilled this Red Wolves team was, but I’ll also remember how much fun they seemed to have while they rolled to a 31-2 season.

Cunningham, in only her second year, certainly demanded excellence from her players. Yet she also seemed to be the ringleader for team celebrations during games. On most aces, Cunningham would lead the bench and twirl like a ballerina. Naturally, Cunningham, who learned to skate when she was 2 years old, had the best balance. When another team had a returned that went out, all the players would hold their hands up over their eyes like they were a golfer trying to find their ball after an errant drive.

There’s also something wonderful about so many members from a small community playing in front of over 1,000 fans in one of the most famous arenas in this state. On Saturday, high school graduates Lindsay Thompson and Jordan Lloyd joined Cameron Lloyd, Julie Altieri, Anaya Carter, Grace Young, and Lauren Cecil posed for a photo in front of the Kay Yow Court after winning the state title. They all played in White Cross once, and what started there ended with a state title.

There’s an argument that this Cedar Ridge volleyball team may have been the best overall team to ever play high school sports in Hillsborough. I’m sure there are some Orange wrestling teams that would like a rebuttal. So would Orange’s 2008 2A State Championship baseball team. It’s a debate for another column, but I doubt if anyone had more fun with their success.

***

“A seasoned witch could call you from the depths of your disgrace“–According to Anderson, that lyric means “Your higher self will eventually bring you out of your dark world.”

As you grow older, the deal you make with life is that people and things get taken away from you. It never gets easier.

As mentioned in this space two weeks ago, we lost Janice Hall on October 19. You may have read my reflections about that at the time, but to summarize it, she was like another mother to me.

In September, 30 years after I graduated from Orange, I lost a classmate to COVID-19. That person married someone she met in Orange’s band class and they stayed together.

Two weeks later, I completed another turn around the sun.

All of the above reminded me why I started this website. Not just the joy of watching a team win a state championship, but watching schools accomplish feats that seemed almost impossible not long ago. The Orange women’s tennis team won a match in the 3A State Dual Team Tennis Tournament last month. No one seems to know for sure, but it’s likely that’s the first time it ever happened. Not only that, they became the first public school to defeat Wilson Hunt this year. The team that eliminated them, Cape Fear, won the 3A State Championship over the weekend.

Over time, I’ve learned that high school sports is my seasoned witch. There’s a passion to high school sports that transcends anything that comes afterward. It’s not about money. It’s more pure than that.

I mean, can you put a price figure on the look in Cameron Lloyd’s eyes in this picture?

“Then according to the man who showed his outstretched arm to space/ he turned around and pointed, revealing all the human race” Jon Anderson: “I’d had this dream where I was up on a mountain. This man was holding me around the shoulders, and he was pointing and saying, ‘That’s the human experience.’ And I smiled because I realized that it was true.”

There’s nothing like watching a state championship. Writing and broadcasting about it is just as fun, especially when it’s in Reynolds Coliseum.

In 2002, after Duke lost to Indiana in the NCAA Tournament Sweet 16, Mike Krzyzewski said “You don’t coach for the championships. You coach for the relationships.” Of course, he got some backlash for that because, well, he’s Mike Krzyzewski.

I’ve yet to meet one coach who disagreed with him.

Honestly, you can’t make state championships the only reason you start a high school website. It had to be for the stories and for a community you love. It may be a different environment from what you grew up around as a high school student 30 years ago, but you learn to accept it or grow bitter.

All of which sums up the last lyrics of Close to the Edge.

“Seasons will pass you by. I get up. I get down.”

Maybe I should be a hardcore Yes fan.

The consensus among Cedar Ridge’s volleyball players is that it was junior setter Julie Altieri who first called head coach Fiona Cummingham “Mom.”

Though she is expecting with her first child, it’s a moniker that Cunningham bristles at. Her players, however, have embraced it.

“She is our second mom,” said Cedar Ridge junior Cameron Lloyd after the Red Wolves captured the 3A State Championship on Saturday over North Iredell in Reynolds Coliseum. “She has made us better in so many ways. Not even just as players, but as people. She’s great.”

Cunningham, whose face turned slightly red as Lloyd made her comments in the postgame press conference, muttered “We’ll just leave it at that.”

“She’s taught us so much that’s we’re going to be able to continue using in life,” said junior Cameron Lanier. “Whether we decide to play in college or not, in everyday general life she’s has taught so much.”

The fact that Cunningham was the coach to lead the Red Wolves’ first run to a volleyball state championship comes with a rich irony. The first great moment for Lloyd, Lanier and Altieri at Cedar Ridge came when they were freshmen and defeated then-defending 3A State Champion Chapel Hill on September 10, 2019. That season, Cunningham was a volunteer assistant for Chapel Hill, but she missed the game that night because she had to work late at UNC Hospitals, where she serves as a Clinical Research Coordinator.

It was Chapel Hill’s only loss of the season. She was present for the rematch a month later, where the Tigers were victorious.

“I saw that night how phenomenally talented Cedar Ridge was,” Cunningham said the following summer, shortly after she accepted the job after previous head coach Anna Seethaler left for Costa Rica. “I got to know they were going to push. From the get-go, I knew that Cedar Ridge was a good team before I considered coaching there.”

Chances are if you had told Cunningham’s mentors in 2012 that she would be holding a state championship trophy as a coach within a decade, they wouldn’t have been surprised. Coaching is embedded in her blood.

A native of Syracuse, New York, Cunningham’s father was a lifelong hockey coach. Cunningham and both of her sisters grew up playing hockey at Cazenovia, New York, where her father ran learn-to-play programs and coached various teams.

Her sister, Maggie, was the original women’s lacrosse coach at Carrboro High. Maggie also played on UNC’s women’s club hockey team, which had home games at the Orange County SportsPlex. That was Fiona’s first brush with Hillsborough, but it wasn’t for volleyball. It was for hockey.

Fiona, who learned to skate at the age of 2, played on a team called TPH based in Atlanta, Nashville, and Huntsville, AL. That meant going to the SportsPlex at 5:00 in the morning because it was the best, and cheapest, time the ice was available for practice. She would finish middle school classes in Chapel Hill, then take off on Fridays for games in the Deep South, which started to wear thin by age 12.

“That was about the time I decided it was time for another sport,” Cunningham said. “We faced teams from Canada. It made the travel schedule for club volleyball seem much easier.”

Tristy Bittikofer, who was Cunningham’s travel coach, used to joke that Cunningham was the “assistant, assistant coach as a player” when she was 17 because she was so organized. On the floor, Cunningham always knew where the players were supposed to be positioned and was effective in communicating with players.

“Tristy told me I would be a good coach,” Cunningham said. “I find coaching to be the better side of the sport. I find it to be even more enjoyable than playing, which is saying a lot because I loved playing.”

Cunningham played at Chapel Hill High School under Sherry Norris, a North Carolina High School Athletic Association Hall of Fame inductee who coached the Tigers’ volleyball team from 1977 to 2013. Norris also coached the women’s basketball team for nearly 40 years and won two state championships.

“I was so lucky to walk into a program where the expectations were ingrained in the culture,” Cunningham said. “Nobody ever had to sit there and tell you that you’re expected to give 100% total effort. Our practices were harder than a lot of our games.”

There were two times where Cunningham reached the 3A Eastern Regional final as a player. On both occasions, the Tigers lost to Cardinal Gibbons in the final. Her senior year, the Tigers finally defeated the Crusaders in the regular season.

“I cried after that game,” Cunningham said.

Cunningham committed to Wofford College, but burst the bursa in her right knee within days of preseason practice starting. The recovery would take the entire season. She transferred to UNC Asheville, where she played for two years.

“It was best to go to a slightly cheaper school,” Cunningham said.

As she recovered from her knee injury, Cunningham served as a student manager for the Bulldogs. She now calls it her “PCL years.” It started her path to coaching.

“Going into college, I knew I wanted to coach,” Cunningham said. “I got so many opportunities while not playing as a part of that program that were just invaluable.”

Heading into Wofford, Cunningham’s intention was to become a graduate assistant and coach in college. As she continued at UNC Asheville, she gained a preference to prep volleyball and working with younger age groups.

“The time in which I was not playing I was able to be hands-on with the coaching staff,” Cunningham said. “I was really involved with decision making and working with players and learning the logistics of running a college program. That was invaluable experience to me knowing I wanted to coach.”

After just her second year at Cedar Ridge, Cunningham has already won two Conference Championships, the Central Conference Tournament, an Eastern Regional championship with an overall record of 41-3.

All of Cedar Ridge’s regular rotation players are slated to return next year.

As many of her players are set for travel season this winter, Cunningham hopes they will enjoy the moment of what they accomplished this season and the exclusive company they just joined.

“I’m really grateful for Cedar Ridge to give me an opportunity as such a young coach,” Cunningham said after Saturday’s state championship win. “I don’t hold any negative notions towards my playing career. It was one of the best memories of my life, regardless of whether we got a state title or not. My coaching career is entirely different. I was to help as many players as possible reach whatever stage they want to reach. These girls made it clear they wanted to reach the state championship.”

RALEIGH–We don’t choose our destiny. Destiny chooses us.

Of course, It wasn’t just destiny that carried Cedar Ridge to its first volleyball state championship on Saturday. Since August, there’s been gallons of sweat spilled by the Red Wolves from Hillsborough to Greenville to Burlington and, ultimately, Reynolds Coliseum in Raleigh. Bodies hit the floor hundreds of times for digs. There were lots of ice bags worn and tossed away after games. A corps of juniors who started as freshmen two years ago honed their skills under head coach Fiona Cunnigham.

Through an undefeated run through the toughest conference in 3A volleyball, the Red Wolves still managed to laugh a lot along the way.

Now, Cedar Ridge is alone at the mountaintop of North Carolina high school volleyball.

The Red Wolves (31-2) defeated North Iredell 3-1 to win the 3A State Championship on Saturday at Reynolds Coliseum at Valvano Arena. Cedar Ridge captured its first state volleyball championship on scores of 25-20, 19-25, 25-22 and 25-16.

Through six matches in the state tournament, the Red Wolves dropped only one set, the lowest amount of any of the four champions crowned on Saturday.

Junior Cameron Lloyd was named the game’s Most Valuable Player after she tallied 14 kills and 12 digs. Lloyd, who surpassed the 500-kill plateau against Person on August 31, had double-digit kills in all eight of the Red Wolves postseason games (including two games in the Central Carolina Conference tournament).

Red Wolves middle blocker Cameron Lanier added eleven kills and eight digs.

Junior Julie Altieri added 28 assists, while libero Grace Young had 23 digs.

North Iredell, led by former Appalachian State head coach Dave Markland, ended the year 26-2. It was their first loss since September 22.

After being an assistant on Chapel Hill’s 2018 3A State Championship squad, Cunningham claimed her first state title as a head coach.

“I’m really proud of our girls for sticking to our game plan,” Cunningham said. “Giving the school and the community something to rally around has been really huge for us. We just had a parent walk up to us in the hallway that has a freshman son. I don’t know if she’s ever watched a volleyball match before, but she told us how much this meant to them.”

Hundreds of Cedar Ridge fans journeyed from Hillsborough and surrounding areas, filling up three sections of the upper bowl of the renovated Reynolds Coliseum, which lists 5,600 as its official capacity. North Iredell fans, some draped in red t-shirts reading “The Road to the State Championship Runs Through Olin,” roared with every Raider point.

Cedar Ridge’s icy poise was tested from the outset when the Raiders reeled off the game’s opening five points with junior Ailena Mykins serving. The Red Wolves took control when sophomore Graylinn Serge took over service with Iredell leading 9-7. Serge cooked up an ace, starting a Cedar Ridge spree of nine consecutive points. Serge had two aces during the run, which also included kills by Melissa Benkowitz, Julie Altieri, Addie Reid and Lloyd. By the time Eliza Jenkins ended the rally, the Red Wolves led 16-10.

North Iredell freshman Kayden Flowers sparked a comeback by serving five straight points to cut Cedar Ridge’s lead to 22-20, but Benkowitz came up with a huge finish off an assist from Julie Altieri. After another kill by Lloyd, Lanier ignored the yelling from the North Iredell fans to serve Cedar Ridge out of the set following a Raider error.

Cedar Ridge’s streak of 31 consecutive sets came to an end in the 2nd, though it appeared the Red Wolves were in position to make to extend it. Cedar Ridge led 15-13 before the Raiders reeled off eight of the next ten points. North Iredell junior Emma Norris, who finished with a team-high eleven kills, made a block on an Benkowitz attack to put the Raiders ahead 22-18. Madeline Sigmon spiked home a winner that tagged the right sideline to force set point, leading to a Norris spike to even the match.

“We didn’t play our game,” Lloyd said about the second set. “We lost our energy. They were getting into our head and we needed to turn things around and bring the energy back to our side. We had a really big fan base.”

The third set, which had 14 ties, essentially decided the match. It was where Lanier shined the brightest. The Raiders built a 5-2 lead early, which was quickly erased when Lanier had consecutive kills. North Iredell grabbed a 19-17 lead after back-to-back kills by junior Emily Campbell, which led to Cunningham calling timeout. The Red Wolves responded with a kill by Addie Reid. An illegal hit by the Raiders evened the set at 19-19.

The Raiders took the lead again after a Red Wolf return went long, but it was erased after a kill by Reid to even the set again 20-20. The Raiders reassumed command after a kill by Madeline Sigmon. A spike by Norris was blocked by Reid, but it went out over the end line to put Iredell ahead 22-20.

That led to the turning point.

Cedar Ridge scored the final five points of the set. After an Iredell serve went into the net, Lanier blocked a Morris attack to tie it at 22-22. Then Lanier took another Altieri feed for a kill to go ahead 23-22. An overhead return by Sigmon went into the nylon, which led to a set point winner by Altieri to send the Red Wolves contingent into a frenzy.

“I came in and I knew we had to push those next couple of points,” Lanier said. “The girls have definitely come back without me getting the blocks, but I know I’m a big part of the team and I just had to work 100% to get those points. And I did.”

The white knuckle intensity of the third set yielded to a Cedar Ridge coronation in the fourth, where the Red Wolves never trailed, jumping out to an a 11-5 lead. Young may have made the best individual play of the match when she dove headlong for a spike by Norris that had plenty of power behind it. So much, in fact, that it rebounded off the sprawling Young’s fist at the attack line, sailed over the net and landed five feet inside the Raiders’ end of the floor to put the Red Wolves ahead 15-8 to spark a deafening roar from the Cedar Ridge fans.

Once Young’s stunning return landed untouched, the reserves along the Iredell bench began wearing faces of resignation. From that point forward, it was only a matter of time.

“We just saw the light at the end of the tunnel,” Lloyd said. “It’s indescribable. We could not give up and had to keep pushing because if we just let them in a little bit, they would have come back and taken it.”

Fittingly, it was Lloyd that scored match point off a feed from Altieri. The all-time kills leader in Cedar Ridge history taking the ball from its all-time assist leader to put an end to the most successful season ever in Hillsborough volleyball.

Cedar Ridge’s mission of 2021 was barely accomplished before talk of a repeat among some Cedar Ridge players started postgame. None of the Red Wolves’ three seniors played on Saturday.

The wonderful thing about winning a state championship is that it lasts forever. In some cases, state titles are a Cinderella story. In Cedar Ridge’s case, their state championship goal was set two years ago after they stunned a Chapel Hill squad that won the 2018 state title.

Or perhaps it all started years ago when Lloyd, Altieri, Anaya Carter, Grace Young and Lauren Cecil played together as elementary school children in the White Cross Recreation Center. That’s where the road to playing in front of over 1,000 fans in Raleigh for a state championship started.

After Saturday, this group of young women has forever left its mark on Cedar Ridge volleyball and Hillsborough as a whole. They will forever be remembered as Destiny’s Darlings.

Cameron Lloyd and Cameron Lanier started as freshman on the Cedar Ridge volleyball team together. On Saturday, they won the 3A State Championship together. The Red Wolves defeated North Iredell 3-1 at Reynolds Coliseum in Raleigh. Cameron Lloyd was named the Most Valuable Player of the game after she compiled a game-high 14 kills along with 12 digs. Cameron Lanier finished with eleven kills,, eight digs and two blocks. Lanier’s biggest moments came in the third set with the score tied 20-20. With Cedar Ridge trailing 22-21, Lanier had a key block to tie the set. Then Lanier put the Red Wolves ahead for good with a kill to make it 23-22. It was only fitting that Lloyd, the all-time kills leader in Cedar Ridge history, scored match point with another kill, leading to a raucous pileup of Red Wolves as a huge throng of fans from Hillsborough cheered at the top of their lungs. It ended a year where Lloyd commemorated her 500th career kill. Lanier will start the 2022 season not far away from that milestone. The Red Wolves will lose three seniors, but Lloyd, Lanier, Julie Altieri, Anaya Carter, Graylinn Serge, Grace Young, Addie Reid, Melissa Benkowitz and many others will return for 2022 as the Red Wolves will continue to work during the winter.

The Cedar Ridge Red Wolves are the 3A State volleyball champions. Junior Julie Altieri and sophomore Graylinn Serge are two big reasons why. Altieri led the Red Wolves with 28 assists in its victory over North Iredell at Reynolds Coliseum in Raleigh on Saturday. Altieri had two kills and 14 digs. Serge, whose play rapidly improved as the season continued, had two aces and 12 digs as the Red Wolves completed a dominant run to the championship. Cedar Ridge dropped only one set in the state tournament the least amount of any team that was crowned a state champion on Saturday in Raleigh. For Altieri, the victory completed a goal that she and her classmates set when they were freshmen three years ago. When Cedar Ridge defeated Chapel Hill in 2019, after the Tigers won the 3A State Championship the previous year, the freshman vowed to win a state title one day. Cedar Ridge completes the season 31-2 and champions of the Central Carolina Conference regular season and tournament, as well as claiming a banner that will hang in Cedar Ridge Arena forever.

From the very beginning of this 2021 season, the goal of the Cedar Ridge volleyball team was to win the 3A State Championship. The Red Wolves accomplished that mission on Saturday when they defeated North Iredell 3-1 at Reynolds Coliseum in Raleigh. Junior libero Grace Young turned the tide in the 4th set when she dove after an attack by the Raiders’ Madeline Sigmon. The spike was so hard, the ball bounced off Young’s hand, floated over the net and fell safely on the Raiders’ end of the floor to put the Red Wolves ahead 13-7. It started a 9-3 run by the Red Wolves that all but put the state championship in Hillsborough. Junior Melissa Benkowitz finished with six kills, five assists and 14 digs. Benkowitz finished the 2021 season with 179 kills, third on the team. Young ends the year with a team-high 299 digs after recording 23 on Saturday. There’s no rest for the Red Wolves. Benkowitz and Young will continue with their travel season with the Chapel Hill Area Volleyball Club, but they’ll always savior being members of the first 3A State Championship volleyball team in Cedar Ridge history.

Take a look at the photo above this post.

Now look closer.

When Cedar Ridge’s players wanted a group photo to pose with their newly captured 3A Eastern Regional Volleyball championship trophy on Tuesday night, they made sure to include the student section (the Wolf Pack) in there with them.

From August 19, when Cedar Ridge swept Riverside for its first home win, the Wolf Pack has been there from the beginning. They’ve stuck through local government sanctions that curtailed attendance and remained staunchly behind a team that has had playing for the state championship its main goal since the first day of practice—three years ago.

That’s what Cedar Ridge’s 3A Eastern Regional volleyball championship represents to this school and western Orange County as a whole.

On Tuesday night, it wasn’t simply a win for Cedar Ridge to defeat J.H. Rose and advance to today’s 3A State Championship match at Reynolds Coliseum in Raleigh. It was an emotional release for students who haven’t been able to enjoy rudimentary activities that their counterparts at most neighboring schools look forward to annually.

How so? For starters, the Class of 2022 hasn’t had varsity football in two of its four years. There have been Homecoming activities, like the one last month during a junior varsity football game against Walter Williams, but it was on a Thursday night. For half of their time at Cedar Ridge, if the seniors wanted to see Friday Night Lights, they had to travel across town to Auman Stadium, or go to Chapel Hill or Durham.

And need I even mention the pandemic and the dozens of games lost as a result? The records that could have been shattered by the likes of Takia Nichols, Cameron Lloyd, Emerson Talley and countless others boggles the mind.

In any aspect of life, people cling to what they can rely on. Whether its Alabama Football, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson putting away the bad guys, Beyonce putting on a killer concert (Rush in my dated mind), or holidays with your parents, there’s no substitute for something you can put your faith in.

That’s been hard to do with Cedar Ridge athletics in recent years. Between coaches and players, there have been many defections to neighboring schools. The right pieces have been in place to establish a football program again, just as the late, great Lou Geary started 20 years ago when he picked up rocks at the field that would become Red Wolves Stadium. Keeping coaches and players has proven difficult at a time when the future of football in Hillsborough has never been more uncertain.

Athletes in other sports have opted to finish their high school careers at various Alamance County Schools instead of staying at Cedar Ridge, even if it meant much less playing time. If they played at all.

Today will be the first time that any Cedar Ridge athletic team has played for a head-to-head state championship since 2017. The Cedar Ridge men’s lacrosse team won the 3A/2A/1A Eastern Regional Championship over Chapel Hill, but lost to a much more talented Weddington team in the final at WakeMed Soccer Park in Cary.

There have been other opportunities for the Red Wolves to return to the state championship spotlight. Most notably, there was the 2018 softball team, a squad that roared through the Big 8 Conference undefeated and finished 15-1 behind pitcher Rivers Andrews, 2nd baseman Tori Dalehite, catcher Kymberlie Thacker and first baseman Kara Wagoner.

The only problem with that 15-1 season was there were a lot of rainouts, which cost the Red Wolves a chance to play nonconfernece games against Western Alamance and Cardinal Gibbons. That led to a much lower seed than they deserved and a third-round game against top-seeded West Brunswick in Shallotte, where the Red Wolves lost 4-3 in nine innings. It’s a game that softball coach Allan Byrd remembers so vividly years later, he can tell you the key moments point-by-point like a poker player detailing a bad beat.

It’s trite to say that this state volleyball championship would mean more to Cedar Ridge than it would to North Iredell. Anyone who goes back and watches North Iredell’s victory over Fred T. Foard on Tuesday night can’t say that with certainty. If you doubt the passion that Raider fans have for their team, just try to find a empty seat on the hard side of the camera from that Western Regional Championship game.

Spoiler alert: you can’t.

One thing is for sure at Cedar Ridge. After 57 wins, two conference championships and a regional championship over the past three years in volleyball, Red Wolf fans have something to rally around again.

Even more, the volleyball team has followed the template for how to succeed in any sport.

Start young and develop. Cameron Lloyd, Julie Altieri, Grace Young, Anaya Carter and Rachel Alverson all started playing against each other at the White Cross Recreation Center when they were in elementary school. They’ve worked year round, beyond the confines of Cedar Ridge and inside the gyms of the Chapel Hill Area Volleyball Club, and later on beach volleyball courts.

While tomorrow never knows, with all nine Cedar Ridge rotation players set to return next year, it appears the Red Wolves will be the team to beat again in 2022 in the Central Carolina Conference. Possibly the entire East Region.

All Cedar Ridge wants today is one more win to add to its school record total of 30. Regardless, they can sleep tonight with the security of being something that the entire Red Wolf community can rely on.

And not a moment too soon.

The Cedar Ridge volleyball team became the first team from Hillsborough to win the Eastern Regional Championship in any sport since the Orange softball team in 2017. Cedar Ridge will now go on to face North Iredell for the 3A State Championship in Raleigh at 1:30 inside Reynolds Coliseum. Its truly a special experience for everyone involved with Cedar Ridge High School, who have labored through many defections and disappointments over the last four years. The fact of the matter is that the state championship has always been the goal for this junior class of Cedar Ridge players since they started together as freshmen. Julie Altieri, Cameron Lloyd and Cameron Lanier started together as freshmen. During the pandemic of 2020, Fiona Cunningham became the Red Wolves head coach and led the Red Wolves to consecutive conference championships, the Central Carolina Conference Tournament championship and, now, the Eastern Regional Championship. Here are the radio highlights of Cedar Ridge’s win over J.H. Rose on Tuesday night. Listen in to our broadcast of Cedar Ridge-North Iredell on Saturday starting a 1:15 live from Reynolds Coliseum.