Cedar Ridge High School

It was 65 degrees when Cedar Ridge kicked off its 2019 high school football season.

And that was far from the most unusual thing Saturday.

But back to weather for a moment….65 degrees on opening day? This is North Carolina high school football in mid-August. You’re supposed to sit in the hot late afternoon sun with humidity thick enough to make you beg for your next breath.

Yet by the end of the day on Saturday, it seemed appropriate. Why should the weather on August 24 make any sense when nothing else in the game did either?

Teams aren’t supposed to commit seven turnovers and still win. But Carrboro did. A football fan can go years between watching their team give up two safeties. On Saturday, there were two within three quarters, including the opening snap of Cedar Ridge’s season.

On a muddy, rain drenched day, Carrboro defeated Cedar Ridge 24-18 in the Red Wolves’ first varsity football game since 2017. After not fielding a varsity team in 2018, the Red Wolves returned in a game that was more mud ball than football.

It was Carrboro’s first win over the Red Wolves since 2015. Carrboro (1-0) senior quarterback T.K. Paisant scored the Jaguars’ only touchdown in the first half on a five-yard keeper around right end. Paisant was also the Jaguars’ leading tackler as a linebacker.

Despite being statistically dominated for much of the first half, the Red Wolves still had a drive to potentially win the game late. Senior wide receiver K.J. Barnes had the longest play from scrimmage of the day with a 73-yard catch-and-run from sophomore quarterback William Berger, who was one of many Red Wolves making their varsity debut.

“We had more than K.J. show up today,” said Cedar Ridge Football Coach Torrean Hinton. “We had Jaikel Gibbs show up today. We had a lot of kids in the interior that fought hard. Braxton (Mergenthal) fought extremely hard. We fought all the way to the end.”

Gibbs, a junior who started for Cedar Ridge’s basketball team last year, had an interception and a fumble recovery in the first half.

The tone for the wet and wild afternoon was set early after Carrboro punter Robert Allen pooched a kick to the Cedar Ridge 3-yard line, the first of nine Red Wolves drives to start inside its own 20-yard line. Berger watched the first snap of Cedar Ridge’s season sail over his head and out of the end zone for a Carrboro safety, two points that the Red Wolves spent the rest of the day chasing.

“To play from behind the whole game, and still have a shot in the end, you can’t ask for more than that.” Hinton said. “We obviously have to cut down on mistakes and turnovers. Some of them were influenced by the conditions, but some of them weren’t.”

Carrboro ventured into Red Wolves territory on its first four possessions, but couldn’t muster any points. Early in the second quarter, Gibbs picked off a Paisant pass, only to have Carrboro’s Anthony Mudrow make his own interception two plays later.

That led to Paisant’s 5-yard touchdown run. The subsequent attempt for 2-points failed and Carrboro led 8-0 with 5:46 remaining in the first half.

Cedar Ridge, still without a first down, went three-and-out on its next drive, but Gibbs recovered a fumble off a muffed punt return at the Carrboro 31-yard line. After running back Isiah McCambry chewed up eight yards on a 3rd-and-7, Berger found Brandon Poteat for a 14-yard touchdown pass to narrow Carrboro’s lead to 8-6.

Cedar Ridge botched a punt snap on the first possession of the second half, leading to Paisant finding Anthony Muldrow for a 32-yard touchdown pass with 9:38 remaining in the 3rd quarter.

The subsequent Cedar Ridge drive could have ended early, but Carrboro was hit with two penalties (personal foul and pass interference) on consecutive third downs. McCambry pushed into the red zone with a 14-yard run, then scored his first varsity touchdown on a 3-yard gallop. Cedar Ridge’s attempt for two failed to keep the Carrboro lead at 14-12.

Carrboro backup quarterback Jake Adams found Tim Rogers-Neal for a 37-yard touchdown pass on the first play of the fourth quarter. In the only successful point after touchdown of the day, Adams found Muldrow for a two-point conversion to push Carrboro lead to 22-12.

Two plays later, Berger hit Barnes for the 71-yard score to narrow Carrboro’s lead to 22-18.

The final six minutes didn’t have any scoring, but it sure wasn’t boring. With a chance to take the lead after a Carrboro punt, Cedar Ridge fumbled and Braden Hunter recovered at the Red Wolf 12-yard line.

On a 3rd-and-7 from the Cedar Ridge 8-yard line, Paisant threw a pass that went off the helmet of Red Wolf linebacker Braden Thompson and was caught by Muldrow at the 1-yard line. Right on cue, Carrboro (you guessed it) fumbled the snap, which was recovered by Elijah Whitaker in the end zone.

Starting from its own 20, Cedar Ridge promptly fumbled another snap in the end zone. McCambry raced back and beat Paisant to the ball for another Carrboro safety instead of a Jaguar touchdown, increasing the Carrboro lead to merely 24-18 and still giving the Red Wolves a fighting chance.

On the subsequent free kick, Carrboro fumbled and Cedar Ridge’s Matthew Hinton recovered. On the next play, Carrboro’s Rogers-Neal picked off his 2nd pass of the game.

Cedar Ridge had the last possession to take the lead, but it stalled out at its own 38-yard line as time ran out.

“We have to be better and fine tune some things,” Hinton said. “We’ll get better.”

The return of Cedar Ridge varsity football has been pushed back a day.

On Friday afternoon, the Cedar Ridge-Carrboro football game was postponed until 4 o’clock Saturday afternoon. Cedar Ridge Athletic Director Andy Simmons confirmed the game will be played to benefit both teams’ schedules.

Cedar Ridge is scheduled to have its off week on August 30. But Carrboro is slated to face East Chapel Hill next week and won’t have an open date until late September. By that point, Cedar Ridge will already be in its Big 8 Conference schedule.

Hillsboroughsports.com will have coverage of Carrboro at Cedar Ridge starting at 3:45 on Saturday afternoon for the C&R Ski Outdoor Pregame Show. Kickoff will be at 4.

It may not be the majority in Orange County, but there have been a lot of people waiting for tonight in Hillsborough, White Cross, Efland and even Mebane.

It’s’ been 735 days since the Cedar Ridge varsity football team has won a game. It came against Carrboro at Red Wolves Stadium.

Whether that’s an omen for tonight is up for the reader to decide, but Carrboro will visit Hillsborough again tonight with a 30% chance of rain in the forecast.

But what’s transpired between the Red Wolves’ last triumphant moment on the gridiron and tonight has tested the Cedar Ridge community, led to the departures of two head coaches, and incurred the wrath of Cedar Ridge parents toward the Orange County School System, including recently departed Superintendent Todd Wirt.

The sport of football, still the most valuable fuel that keeps the engine of high school sports pumping, had a existential crisis locally last August. The Friday nights in Red Wolves Stadium were never as solemn as they were in 2008, when Cedar Ridge didn’t field a varsity team.

When the Orange County School System made the announcement in June 2018, it caught many by surprise, not the least of which head coach Scott Loosemore, who departed for an assistant’s job with Scotland County soon afterwards.

After the district’s announcement, submitted in a Tweet, tensions boiled over the following Monday. School officials curiously scheduled a town hall meeting at Cedar Ridge cafeteria to discuss the future of football at 6:30 PM. It just so happened that the Orange County School Board met at Gravelly Hill Middle School at 7PM that same night, making it impossible for parents who wanted to sound off to both then-Principal Heather Blackmon and Superintendent Wirt (who was at the board meeting). The timing of the two meetings was no coincidence, and it only served to deepen the divide when several parents drove to Efland to give school board members (none of whom had any role in canceling the varsity season) a piece of their minds just as the meeting was finishing.

Several school board members stayed well after the session ended to listen to concerns, but some of the exchanges were hardly civil.

All of that is now in the past, but it wouldn’t be a Cedar Ridge football training camp without some adversity. On July 29, moments before the Red Wolves were ready to start its first practice, head coach Antonio King informed Athletic Director Andy Simmons he was leaving to become a running backs coach at North Carolina Central University.

The following morning, Torrean Hinton was barely awake when he received a phone call inquiring if he would be interested in become varsity coach. He accepted.

For seniors like wide receiver K.J. Barnes, Braedon Thompson, Braxton Mergenthal, Jaikel Gibbs and Zachary Holmes, tonight’s game isn’t just about trying to win.

Just as Robert Louis Stevenson once wrote that “To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive,” this Cedar Ridge team can achieve something without winning.

They can start a healing process for an athletic program that’s been overwhelmed with coach and player defections for the past year. None of that can be solved in one night.

But the bottom line is Friday nights are back at Cedar Ridge.

The Red Wolves will travel hopefully tonight.

And not a moment too soon.

Kayla Hodges: In her season-debut for the Elon women’s soccer team on Thursday night, the 2018 Orange High graduate started as the Phoenix defeated Canisus 1-0 in overtime at Rudd Field in Elon. Freshman Bethany Harford scored the game’s only goal. In 2018, Hodges appeared in seven matches. She made her college debut on August 19, 2018 against UNC Wilmington, playing 18 minutes. Hodges was named to the Colonial Athletic Association Academic Honor Roll at the end of the season. Elon returns to action with a home game against High Point on Sunday. Earlier this week, Hodges cousin continued to make his presence felt on the baseball diamond…

Bryse Wilson: After returning to the Gwinnett Stripers of the AAA International League on Monday from Atlanta, Wilson collected his fifth straight win with a 6-2 decision over the Norfolk Tides at Harbor Park in Norfolk, VA. Wilson threw six innings and surrendered four hits, one earned run and three strikeouts. He now leads the International League in wins (5) and ERA (0.55) in his last five starts. Since July 21, teams are hitting only .190 against Wilson. The Stripers currently lead the Charlotte Knights by one-and-a-half games for first place in the International League’s Southern Division. The Stripers are looking for its 2nd division championship since leaving Richmond, VA for Georgia in 2009. Gwinnett will journey to Durham for a weekend series against the Bulls starting Friday, but Wilson isn’t expected to see action.

Jonathan Hall: A 2016 Cedar Ridge graduate, Hall is now with the Wofford men’s track and field team. Last season during the Terrier’s indoor season, Hall competed in four meets. He set personal bests in the 60-meter hurdles at the VMI Winter Relays and added a personal best in the 400 meters at the East Tennessee State Track & Field Invitational. In the 2018 outdoor season, Hall ran six meets. At the Southern Conference Championships, Hall was 10th in the preliminaries of the 110-meter hurdles with a personal best of 15.25 seconds. He added a personal best in the 400 meter hurdles at the ETSU Tri Star Classic. In 2017, Hall was named to the Southern Conference All-Freshman Team in the 400 meters. Hall was a three-year letterman for the Cedar Ridge football team as a wide receiver under Coach Scott Loosemore.

Hunter March: Last spring, March completed his freshman season for the Division III UNC Pembroke track and field team. March competed the decathlon, where he amassed 3,720 points. That included a personal best of 11.54 seconds in the 100 meter dash; 56.70 seconds in the 200 meter dash; and 18.38 seconds in the 110 meter hurdles. March also had a leap of 5.50 meters in the long jump and 1.51 meters in the high jump. At Cedar Ridge, March qualified for the 3A Mideast Regionals in the 110 meter hurdles, pole vault, the 4×100 and 4×200 relay teams. He also played for the Cedar Ridge men’s soccer team under head coach Chris Walker and football for three years under Loosemore. As of his autumns at Cedar Ridge weren’t busy enough, March also participated in the marching band. He now majors at Computer Science at Pembroke. He starts his sophomore year next week.

At the beginning of this decade, the Cedar Ridge men’s basketball program was on the verge of playing for a state championship. 

Coached by Jim Pappas, the Red Wolves was 23-2 after finishing 16-0 in Carolina 9 Conference, including two wins over archrival Northwood. The Chargers joined Cedar Ridge in the 2A Eastern Regional semifinals at Minges Coliseum in Greenville. Clinton, rallied by a rowdy contingent of fans who chanted “I believe that we will win” years before it became the unofficial motto of the U.S. Men’s National Soccer team, upset the Red Wolves 57-48.

Now at decade’s end, Cedar Ridge is starting over again after going through its most difficult season.

After laboring through a 1-23 season in 2018-19, the Red Wolves have named Jaison Brooks as its new head coach.

Brooks spent last season as a personal finance teacher at Cedar Ridge. He replaces Clay Jones, who has left Cedar Ridge after six seasons. Jones, who previously planned to return to Cedar Ridge and continue as women’s golf coach, started a new job earlier this month and has left the school.

Brooks also worked at Orange in 2018 and nearly wound up on the staff of current Panthers coach Derryl Britt before moving over to the opposite end of Hillsborough to work in the AVID (Avid Via Individual Determination) program. In fact, Britt spent time in Philadelphia this summer for an AVID conference.

Brooks played high school basketball in three different states, ending up with Valley High in West Des Moines, Iowa. He also lived in Missouri and North Carolina.

“When opportunities arise, you have to take them,” Brooks said. “That’s a lesson I learned from my mother and it’s why we moved around a lot.”

Brooks, whose mother worked as a corporate lawyer before venturing into human resources, graduated from North Carolina Central, where he forged a relationship with Eagles men’s basketball coach LeVelle Moton.

He started teaching at Southern Vance High School in Henderson. He served as an assistant for Raiders’ men’s basketball coach Mike Rotolo, who is now at Vance Granville Community College. Brooks taught Technical Education courses at Southern Vance.

“He gave me an opportunity,” Brooks said. “I wasn’t really looking for it. It just kind of happened. I’ve always loved the game.”

As he looks forward to his first head coaching job, Brooks watched a few Cedar Ridge games from the stands last season. The Red Wolves’ only win came against Rockingham County on December 7.

After the transfer of Mekai Collins to Orange, Cedar Ridge entered last season painfully young. Freshmen Derek Smith and Cameron Harper played regularly.

The tri-captains from last season’s team, Andrew Altieri, K.J. Barnes and Chris Tinnen, will all be seniors when the season starts in November.

“The biggest focus is what we can do together as a team,” Brooks said. “I believe that I can do a good job. That doesn’t mean that we’re going to win every game. That’s not necessarily the focus. But I believe I can have the students that are there grow as individuals and as people. I have a lot of kids that are excited for the upcoming season.”

Five days after his tenure at Cedar Ridge High School ended after one season, the names just roll off of Mitchell Frazier’s tongue.

There’s Phillip Berger, who became the first pitcher in school history to win 20 career games last spring. Jackson Strowd, who scored the game-winning run in a 3-2 win at Chapel Hill on March 19. And also Cooper Lamb, who scored twice in Cedar Ridge’s 10-0 win over Oxford Preparatory.

That will always be Frazier’s first win as a varsity head coach, a profession that’s in his blood and runs through his family.

It’s also why he’s leaving Hillsborough.

Frazier formally resigned as Cedar Ridge baseball coach last Thursday. He will become the new coach at Eastern Randolph.

For the second straight August, Cedar Ridge Athletic Director Andy Simmons will be searching for a new baseball coach. In 2018, Jamie Athas left to become the head baseball coach at Burlington Williams.

Midway through Cedar Ridge’s 8-12 season, Frazier learned that he would become a father. Frazier, who accepted the job at Cedar Ridge at the beginning of the 2018-19 academic year, made daily drives (one hour each way) from Davidson County while his wife continue to teach and coach women’s basketball at North Davidson High School.

Now, Frazier’s drive will be cut in half, unless he gets behind the occasional tractor-trailer.

“It was a family decision,” said Frazier from his home on Tuesday night. “The driving was never an issue. I just felt that it would be best to get on a schedule that’s similar to what my wife is on. That way, I can support her in the way that she needs support. It was a very difficult decision.”

Frazier arrived at Cedar Ridge after serving as an assistant at Southwest Guilford. An assistant principal at Cedar Ridge, Kevin Bowman, went to Guilford College with Jeff Joyce, who also coached at SGHS.

“The community at Cedar Ridge was close knit with its baseball,” Frazier said. “It was a pleasure to be around. They gave me my first opportunity to be a head coach and I’ll forever be grateful for that. You’re around a lot of great people at Cedar Ridge. That’s the whole school, not just baseball.”

During an up-and-down season, Frazier’s most memorable moment came in his final game. On Berger’s senior night, he threw a complete game to beat Northern Durham 4-3 for his 22nd, and final, career victory.

“Holy cow,” Frazier says when recalling that memory. “That’s a night I’ll never forget, for sure. Everybody on that team really rallied around those seniors. It was a really special night all the way around. It was a well-played game.”

Like many people of his generation raised in the south, Frazier is a diehard Atlanta Braves fan. After learning that his wife will give birth to a son in January, there’s already a pool open at Eastern Randolph as to which former Atlanta player Frazier will name his son after (Maddux is the current betting line favorite).

But coaching will always be part of the Frazier family. Even though his wife is due in November, she’s still planning to coach basketball starting in November. Her husband will get adjusted to his 2nd varsity team in Ramseur.

“At the end of the day, family comes first,” Frazier said. “This was one of those family decisions that we needed to make. I’ll definitely remember the community support I had at Cedar Ridge.”

The Cedar Ridge volleyball team is 2-0 after beating the Durham School of the Arts 3-1 on Tuesday night in Hillsborough. The Red Wolves dropped the first set, but Layne Foster helped spark a rally with 13 kills. Cameron Lloyd had 15 kills as Cedar Ridge finished with a flourish. Foster transferred from East Chapel Hill during the summer. In Monday night’s season-opening win over Eastern Alamance, Foster had five kills. Cedar Ridge will take the rest of the week off before resuming action next Tuesday at the North Carolina School of Science and Math in Durham. The Red Wolves next four games are on the road. 

It’s been a long time coming for Cedar Ridge football, but finally on Friday night they will play its first varsity football game since 2017 against Carrboro. Interestingly, the last time Cedar Ridge won a varsity football game, it was against Carrboro to start the 2017 season. The game was shortened by lightning and ended early in the third quarter. Phillip Berger was the quarterback of the Red Wolves that night. On Friday, he younger brother William will start behind center. Among Berger’s main targets will be wide receiver Brandon Poteat, who will be able the top playmakers for Cedar Ridge this season. Hillsboroughsports.com will air Friday’s game starting with the pregame show at 7:15.