Cedar Ridge Volleyball

The further Cedar Ridge volleyball goes into the postseason, the tougher the tests will be.

At least, that was logic dictates. While Harnett Central did come the closest than any other team thus far in the 3A State Playoffs to actually winning a set against the Red Wolves, Cedar Ridge still advanced comfortably to the state quarterfinals on Thursday night.

In front of a crowded Cedar Ridge student section and Harnett Central fans shaking cowbells, the Red Wolves (28-2) defeated the Trojans 3-0 on scores of 25-18, 25-8 and 25-8. The Red Wolves will face Central Carolina Conference rival Northwood on Saturday in the Elite Eight.

Harnett Central, the champions of the 4A/3A All American Conference, conclude the season 19-8. The Trojans had won eight in a row, and 12 of its last 13, going into Thursday night.

“I am so proud of my team for handling themselves well tonight,” said Cedar Ridge head coach Fiona Cunningham. “They adjusted well to the loud crowd on both sides. In the first set, we tried to do too much. In the second and third sets, we came back to our game, which is ball controlled oriented.”

Junior outside hitter Cameron Lloyd finished with 15 kills, six digs, five aces, and three assists as the Red Wolves clinched its first trip to the regional semifinals since 2015. The opposite outside hitter, Melissa Benkowitz, finished with seven kills and nine digs. Libero Grace Young, who has committed to UNC Asheville, led Cedar Ridge with 21 digs. Setter Julie Altieri had 29 assists.

Cedar Ridge, the #1 seed in the East, is 15-1 at home this season.

There were five ties and two lead changes in the opening set, easily the tightest of the night. After a Cedar Ridge return went long, Harnett Central even the frame 12-12. The Red Wolves went on an 8-2 run, which included Anaya Carter sending an offspeed attack softly over the net off a feed from Altieri. After a side out for the Trojans, Altieri played the ball off the net and passed it to Lanier, who attacked from a standing position and found an open spot in the Trojans’ end.

Benkowitz and Altieri had kills to push the Cedar Ridge lead to 20-14. The Red Wolves wrapped up the set 25-18 after a Trojan overhand attack went long.

That was the end of the drama for the night. Cedar Ridge jumped out to a 6-1 lead in the second set behind two kills from Carter, an ace from Graylinn Surge and two aces from Lloyd. With Cedar Ridge leading 15-5 after an ace from Benkowitz, sophomore Addie Reid sent the gym into delirium with three consecutive kills, the last one unassisted, which forced another Trojan timeout.

“Addie has grown so much this season,” Cunningham said. “She knows how to get the team hype, the team loves seeing each other be successful and she is so good at bringing her team up.”

In the third set, Cedar Ridge opened with a 13-2 run. During that spurt, Lloyd had three kills and an ace. Sophomore Natasha Buchler-Fosado, who spent this season on the junior varsity squad, played extensively down the stretch. Carter, Benkowitz and Lanier had kills leading up to match point.

Cedar Ridge has now won ten in a row since dropping a 2-0 decision to Green Hope during a quad-match at Chapel Hill High School.

It won’t be any surprise to anyone who has followed the RPI rankings that of the final four teams remaining in the 3A Eastern Region, three are from the Central Carolina Conference. Cedar Ridge will face Northwood on Saturday at Red Wolves Gymnasium in the state quarterfinals. The Chargers, who were swept by the Red Wolves in the regular season, defeated 4th-seeded Croatan on Tuesday in Newport.

Person, who defeated Northwood last week in the Central Carolina Conference tournament semifinals, defeated Hunt in Wilson to advance to the state quarterfinals. The Rockets will travel to Greenville to face J.H. Rose on Saturday.

“I am not surprised but he strength of the Central Carolina,” Cunningham said. “We are so proud of our conference for bringing it and we cannot wait to see Northwood on Saturday because we know they will bring it.”

There’s something to be said about momentum, and the Cedar Ridge volleyball team didn’t lack it after the first set of its third round game in the 3A State Playoffs on Thursday night. The Red Wolves defeated Harnett Central 3-0 to advance to the state quarterfinals at Red Wolves Gymnasium. Sophomore Addie Reid sent the Cedar Ridge faithful into hysterics with three consecutive kills in the second set, which put the Red Wolves ahead 18-5. On a team full of finishers, junior Anaya Carter is another strong weapon. Carter came away with six kills, including two in the opening set, the only competitive frame on the night. Cedar Ridge is now the winningest team in school history with a mark of 28-2. They will take on a familiar face on Saturday in the regional semifinals. It will be Cedar Ridge vs. Northwood. The Chargers defeated Croatan 3-0 in Newport. Cedar Ridge defeated Northwood twice during the regular season, but the Chargers were one of only five teams to win a set against the Red Wolves this year.

As recently as two years ago, Grace Young wasn’t sure if she was a Division I college caliber volleyball player.

And even if she was, she sure didn’t think being as a defensive specialist on a successful high school team would be her ticket to the next level.

Young thought her future was as a setter on offense, feeding the ball to Cedar Ridge’s big outside hitters Cameron Lloyd and Cameron Lanier, who would slam home point after point almost as will against hapless opponents. That what her role with the Chapel Hill Area Volleyball Club, her summer travel team under coach Tatiana Jackson, a former UNC volleyball player from 2013-2016.

During winter afternoons, Young would show up to the CHAVC gym for workouts. Afterwards, Grace would go home with her father Jeff, where they would place pipes on the ground for setting training.

Those lessons counted for something, but she didn’t accept an offer to play at UNC Asheville as a setter. Instead, her contribution has been defensively for the Red Wolves as a libero, playing in the backcourt as her longtime friend Julie Altieri sets up the Red Wolves’ outside hitters near the net.

“Before last year, I didn’t think I would be playing Division one,” Young said. “It’s crazy to think about now I’m going to Asheville as a DS (defensive specialist). It’s been a journey, for sure.”

Young’s position adjustment has worked out best for everyone. She has a team-high 227 digs for a Cedar Ridge team that has won the 2021 Central Carolina regular season and tournament championships. Under head coach Fiona Cunningham, the Red Wolves have broken the single-season school record with 27 wins as they prepare to face Harnett Central in the 3rd round of the 3A State Playoffs tonight at Cedar Ridge High School.

Young made her decision to attend UNC Asheville after spending the weekend of October 8-9 entrenched inside the UNCA program. That included watching the Bulldogs game against Winthrop from the Justice Center. During pregame, she was invited to watch film of Winthrop with the team in a large conference room. Afterwards, she took a tour of campus.

“I really was leaning towards Asheville,” Young said. “I always had my eyes on Asheville. I went to their camp last summer and fell in love with it. I love the coaches. They’re so sweet. It’s just like a big family environment at UNC Asheville.”

It didn’t hurt that Young’s mother, Brenda, has parents in Asheville and she makes frequent trips to visit that side of the family.

Like many successful athletic careers, Grace Young’s foray into volleyball started with a community.

In this case, it was in White Cross. She started playing volleyball when she was 8, paired against girls named Cameron Lloyd, Julie Altieri and Anaya Carter. There would be Friday night games, where there was as much competition as fun. Afterwards, they’d all sit around to eat hot dogs from the concession stand, located no more than 50 feet from the volleyball’s court baseline.

It’s still a White Cross tradition, and Young often visits on Friday nights.

Years later, those players who enjoyed hot dogs together would band together as a unified front for Cedar Ridge. Since Young joined the varsity as a libero last year, the Red Wolves are 36-3, 20-0 in conference games with two conference championships and three state playoff wins. And counting.

“I give them all of the credit,” Young said of her teammates. “I couldn’t have gotten anywhere without them, honestly. Them and the coaches that led me along the way.”

When things aren’t going good in some games, Young will wear her emotions on her burgundy sleeve. That’s when Cameron Lloyd will walk up to her and say “Grace, turn on that switch.”

“Just those little words will fire me up,” Young said. “Ava Lowry is always good to make a joke. Anaya and I will sit on the bench sometimes and we’ll play a game where we slap each other with a towel or something whenever we score a point. They always keep me smiling.”

If you look at Cedar Ridge’s bench during some noncompetitive games, Cunningham will lead her players to various celebrations after points. After an ace, for instance, all the reserves with twirl with their arms over their heads like a ballerina.

In her formative years playing in White Cross, Young was coached by former Cedar Ridge player Tory McNeil, who played on a Red Wolves squad that went to the fourth round of the 2013 3A State Playoffs.

“Tory was so energetic and really taught Grace that volleyball was meant to be fun,” said Jeff Young.

Grace attended volleyball camps at Cedar Ridge when Charlie Oakley was the head coach. Oakley led Cedar Ridge to three conference championships, including consecutive titles in the Carolina 9 Conference in 2010 and 2011. The 2009 team finished 26-5, setting a school record for most wins in a season that stood for 12 years until this year’s squad broke it on Tuesday night with its win over South Johnston in the second round of the state playoffs.

After playing at Gravelly Hill Middle School, Young joined many of the players that she once played against in White Cross at Cedar Ridge in 2019. Young played junior varsity her freshman year, while Lloyd, Altieri and Carter played varsity. Together, they took a Red Wolves team that went 23-42 in the previous three years and sparked an instant revival of the program. In their freshman year, with Young still at JV, Cedar Ridge went 18-6 and upset defending 3A State Champions Chapel Hill in their first Big 8 Conference game.

It was the time away from Cedar Ridge that shaped Young’s work ethic. In the winter, there would be travel tournaments with CHAVC in Texas, Florida, and Missouri, to name just a few of the states. A standard weekend would have 9-10 games with best-of-three sets, usually three games per day. It left Young utterly exhausted by the time Monday rolled around. With her body sore, she constantly fought the urge to stay in bed and skip Monday workouts with Bittikofer, but she always went anyway.

“I was raised in a family that was taught to work hard,” Young said. “After long tournaments, I would have lessons for defense and serve receives on Mondays. I did not want to go to it. But my Dad would give me a call and say ‘It’s your decision on what I want to do, but it would be good if you went.’ I knew it would work out in the long run if I just put in the work. That mindset really helped me.”

Young started playing beach volleyball in 2019. Sherry Lloyd, Cameron’s mother, would drive Young, Altieri, Carter and others to Bittikofer’s and Linda Lang’s gym. During the pandemic, Young’s CHAVC team practiced four times a week, three hours a day for 2-on-2 games. Originally, Young’s beach volleyball (or sand, for short) partner was Carter. But when Young joined a team called Blue Sky, she teamed with Melissa Benkowitz, then of East Chapel Hill High. Benkowitz transferred to Cedar Ridge over the summer.

Young’s immediate future is unclear. Right now, she and her teammates are riding a #1 seed and hope to reach the state quarterfinals tonight. Of course, the team’s ultimate goal is to play for the 3A State Championship at the famed Reynolds Coliseum in Raleigh a week from this Saturday.

But her long term future is set. It will be in Asheville, and her setting days are over.

She wouldn’t have it any other way.

“I will definitely be a defensive specialist in Asheville,” Young said.

One game at a time. That’s the way the #1 seeded Cedar Ridge volleyball team is taking the 3A State Playoffs. On Tuesday night, the Red Wolves easily disposed of South Brunswick in the second round of the 3A State Playoffs 3-0 on scores of 25-4, 25-11 and 25-14. Cedar Ridge stormed out to the first seven points of the match behind three kills from Cameron Lloyd and three aces from junior Julie Altieri. The Trojans never led nor tied the match in the opening two sets. South Johnston made a run to tie the third set 12-12, but junior Melissa Benkowitz came up with two big kills to keep Cedar Ridge in the led for the rest of the match. Benkowitz, a transfer from East Chapel Hill, has provided another finisher for a Cedar Ridge team that badly needed it after last year’s loss to D.H. Conley in the 2nd round of the 3A State Playoffs. Sophomore Addie Reed had three big blocks in the second set to send the Red Wolves’ student section into a frenzy. The Red Wolves improved to 27-2 with the victory and will face 9th-seeded Harnett Central in the Round of 16 on Thursday night at Red Wolves Gymnasium. This will be the first time that Cedar Ridge has hosted a third-round playoff game since 2015. Game time between Harnett Central and Cedar Ridge will be at 6 on Thursday night.

For the first time since 2015, the Orange volleyball team has advanced to the 2nd round of the 3A State Playoffs.

On a busy Saturday afternoon across Hillsborough, the Lady Panthers defeated West Johnston 3-0 in the opening round of the NCHSAA State Playoffs at Panther Gymnasium. Orange (11-9), hosting its first state playoff match in nine years, prevailed over the Wildcats on scores of 25-23, 25-17 and 25-19.

Across town, the top-seeded Cedar Ridge Red Wolves had no problem with the 32nd-seeded South Brunswick Cougars 3-0. The Red Wolves (26-2), who have already set the school record for wins in a season, prevailed on scores of 25-8, 25-8 and 25-12.

Orange will travel to face Wilson Hunt on Tuesday night. The Warriors (22-4), seeded #3, won the Quad County Conference championship with a 14-0 record. Hunt swept Triton in the opening round on Saturday.

Cedar Ridge will return home on Tuesday to face #17 South Johnston on Tuesday night at Red Wolves Gymnasium. The Trojans defeated West Carteret 3-1 in Morehead City on Saturday.

Against West Johnston, Orange trailed 15-11 until Emma Wimsatt scored a kill off an assist from Caitlin Carden. Then junior Allie Wilkerson took over the match. She served 12 consecutive points for the Lady Panthers, including three aces. Wimsatt had four kills during the run, while Avery Miller had another. All five kills were assisted by Carden, who had 14 assists in the second and third sets. In a frame that had six ties and four lead changes, Miller scored set point on a spike that caught the center of the floor.

In the second and third sets, Miller had eight kills and eleven digs. Wimsatt recorded seven kills, seven assists and seven digs. Senior Ella Van Tiem had six kills and six digs.

West Johnston jumped out to a 5-1 lead in the third set. Orange went on a 8-3 run to take an 11-10 lead off three kills by Miller. Kinzy Rowney and Wilkerson also had finishes.

Orange would take the lead with three straight points off kills by Wimsatt and Van Tiem. Wilkerson served the final three points for Orange, including an ace on match point.

It was Orange’s first home win in a state playoff match since they defeated McMichael 3-0 on October 20, 2012.

Cedar Ridge didn’t face a deficit against South Brunswick (4-14) until the third set. The Red Wolves scored the opening five points of the first set and led 6-0 in the second set. Cameron Lloyd finished with eleven kills, ten aces and nine digs, coming one dig short of a triple-double. Cameron Lanier had eight kills. Junior setter Julie Altieri finished with five aces and 13 assists. Rachel Alverson, who replaced Altieri as setter in the third set, had eight kills.

Junior libero Grace Young led the Red Wolves with 15 digs.

Lloyd racked up the opening three kills of the match. Altieri followed with consecutive aces. Cedar Ridge finished the opening set with eight of the last nine points, including a block by Lanier, followed by a kill by Lanier.

Altieri opened the second set with three aces. Lloyd had two kills, both assisted by Altieri, while Lanier scored another. Midway through the second, Cedar Ridge went on a 13-0 run, which included six assists by Lloyd, who finished with 10 aces.

Melissa Benkowitz, who had five kills and eight digs, notched a finish to wrap up the second set.

South Brunswick had a 3-2 lead in the third set, its only advantage the entire day. The Red Wolves quickly erased that with a 10-1 run.

The opening round of the state volleyball playoffs on Saturday also includes several milestones, both locally and statewide.

It will be the first state playoff competition administered by the North Carolina High School Athletic Association where the brackets are configured based on the new ratings percentage index. Before the pandemic, the NCHSAA seeded the playoffs based on a formula dictated by MaxPreps rankings.

The first RPI rankings, released last month, made it clear the Central Carolina Conference was the top league in the 3A East region. Nothing has changed since then.

Cedar Ridge, the CCC regular season and tournament champions, finished #1 in the 3A East Region. The Red Wolves will open with South Brunswick (4-13) this afternoon at Red Wolves Gymnasium at 2 o’clock. The Cougars, who play in the 4A/3A Mideastern Conference, earned the #32 seed in the 3A East because they finished the highest among the three 3A teams in their league (North Brunswick wound up 2-12 and West Brunswick went 0-14).

It will be the second time in 2021 that Cedar Ridge has hosted a state playoff game. In January, the Red Wolves defeated Union Pines in the opening round of a 3A State Playoff where the field was reduced to 32 teams. Eventual 3A State Champion D.H. Conley eliminated the Red Wolves two nights later in Greenville in four sets.

In the final RPI standings, the CCC had four of the top nine teams in the 3A East region. In addition to Cedar Ridge, Northwood finished #3, Person #4 and Orange #9. Eastern Alamance, who will travel to Person this afternoon, wound up #14.

Meanwhile, Orange will host a state volleyball playoff game for the first time since 2012 this afternoon. The Lady Panthers will welcome West Johnston (12-5), who finished in a three-way tie for 2nd place with C.B. Aycock and South Johnston in the Quad County Conference. Earlier this week, Orange rallied from two sets down to defeat Western Alamance in the opening round of the CCC Tournament before falling to Cedar Ridge in the semifinals.

Orange (10-9) will clinch its third straight winning season with a victory over the Wildcats. If Orange wins, the Lady Panthers will face either 3rd-seeded Wilson Hunt, the champions of the Quad County Conference, or 30th seeded Triton in the 2nd round.

A big reason why Orange received a high RPI ranking was its strength of schedule. The Lady Panthers’ opponents win percentage was .670. The only team in the 3A East region with a higher figure was Cedar Ridge with .672. The Red Wolves didn’t surpass Orange in that category until the final of the CCC Tournament, where the Red Wolves swept Person.

Playing the strongest schedule imaginable was precisely what Cedar Ridge coach Fiona Cunningham aimed for at the beginning of the season. After its loss to Conley, Cunningham immediately scheduled a home-and-home series with the Vikings, which included the Red Wolves avenging its loss in August. And they did it in Greenville.

Cedar Ridge won six nonconference games against teams that won its respective league championships: twice against Carrboro (champions of the Northern Lakes Conference), D.H. Conley (tied for 1st in the Big East), J.H. Rose (tied with Conley), Pinecrest (a 4A team that won the Sandhills Confernece) and Chapel Hill (another 4A team that went undefeated in the DAC-VII).

If the Red Wolves win its opening round game today, they will host either #16 West Carteret or #17 South Johnston on Tuesday at Red Wolves Gymnasium.

The 3rd round is scheduled for Thursday.

The last time Cedar Ridge won 24 games in a regular season, they hosted the 3A Eastern Regional Championship game in 2015. Asheboro defeated the Red Wolves in four sets.

In soccer, it’s referred to as the double.

it happens when a team wins its regular season championship, then follows by winning the league’s domestic club cup tournament.

Not only has Cedar Ridge accomplished the volleyball equivalent of the double, but they will now go down as the winningest team in school history.

A double for any program is quite an achievement. Since August, the term “win states” has been tossed around the Cedar Ridge program as commonly as most pronouns.

The goal now is the treble. Then again, it always has been.

On Wednesday night, Cedar Ridge won the Central Carolina Conference Tournament championship with a 3-0 sweep of Person at Red Wolves Gymnasium. It was the third time this year the Red Wolves (25-2) swept the Rockets, who upset Northwood on Tuesday in the semifinals at Charger Gymnasium.

The Red Wolves won on scores of 25-17, 25-12 and 25-13.

Once again, the White Cross mafia led the way for Cedar Ridge. Junior Cameron Lloyd finished with 15 kills and 12 digs. Junior setter Julie Altieri, who grew up playing with and against Lloyd, Grace Young and Cameron Lanier in the White Cross Recreation League and elsewhere, finished with 31 assists, 12 digs and four aces. Young, another junior who has committed to play at UNC Asheville, led the Red Wolves with 21 digs.

Cedar Ridge surpassed the 2015 team for the most wins in one season. The 2015 Red Wolves finished 24-4, won the Big 8 Championship (there was no conference tournament) and reached the Eastern Regional championship game, where they fell to Asheboro.

Regardless of how the 3A State Playoffs turn out, the Red Wolves will be remembered as a team that dominated a deep league. Cedar Ridge finished 14-0 against Central Carolina Conference teams and dropped only three sets out of 42.

On September 23, Cedar Ridge swept Person in Roxboro, known as one of the loudest gyms in the area. On that day, the closest the Rockets came to winning a set came in the 2nd when they amassed 22 points. Some observers thought the return of Person outside hitters Karter Hawkins and Delaney Glover would lead to a tighter match in the tournament championship, but the Rockets only led once, and that was when Hawkins scored a kill in the opening set to give Person a 2-1 lead. There were only two ties, both in the opening set, as well.

The Red Wolves went on a 7-2 run, which included two aces by Lloyd and another by Lanier, to take a 9-3 lead in the first set. Lloyd had six kills in the frame. This was the only set where Person made a serious run late after Hawkins and Glover had consecutive kills to reduce its deficit to 17-15. Then Altieri set up finishes by Lanier and Melissa Benkowitz to trigger four consecutive Red Wolves points. Lanier wrapped up the set with a block at the net to turn away a Person attack.

Cedar Ridge’s depth overwhelmed the Rockets in the second set. Six different Red Wolves recorded kills, including another six by Lloyd and two each from Lanier and sophomore Addie Reid. Leading 6-5, Cedar Ridge went on a 9-0 run to take control of the set. Reed had two kills during that span, while Julie Altieri had a flash kill off an assist from Young. Person reeled off five straight points to cut the Wolves’ lead to 15-10, but Reed came up with a block of a Glover kill that landed just inside the Person end line to silence the threat. Lloyd had an unassisted kill for the 25th point.

The third set was all Red Wolves. Cedar Ridge roared out to a 7-0 lead after Altieri had consecutive aces and kills from Lanier, Lloyd and Anaya Carter. The longest rally of the match occurred with Cedar Ridge leading 20-10. It ended when a ball bounced off Altieri’s fist, directly to Young’s hand and sent across by Benkowitz. Lloyd wound up with the kill. Lanier finished off match point for the Red Wolves third championship in two years.

The Cedar Ridge volleyball team is now the winningest volleyball team in school history. The Red Wolves won the Central Carolina Conference tournament championship on Wednesday night, defeating Person 3-0 by scores of 25-17, 25-12 and 25-13. It was the 25th win of the season for Cedar Ridge, breaking the previous record of 24 by the 2015 team. Junior Cameron Lloyd had 15 kills to add to her team-leading total of 227. Lloyd also finished with 12 digs. Junior setter Julie Altieri had 31 assists, 12 digs, four aces, two kills and a block. Junior Cameron Lanier finished with six kills and four blocks. With the win, Cedar Ridge added a tournament championship to its CCC regular season title. They completed a truly dominant run through the Central Carolina Conference, which had four teams earn first-round home games for the 3A State Playoffs. The Red Wolves went 14-0 against CCC opponents this season, winning 42 sets and dropping only three. Cedar Ridge is the #1 seed in the 3A East Region for the State Playoffs. They will open against South Brunswick at Red Wolves Gymnasium on Saturday afternoon at 2 PM.