The past four years, Cedar Ridge baseball has started each Central Conference season by splitting a two-game series against Walter Williams.

For an experienced team with lofty expectations this year, the Red Wolves want to start the league campaign with a sweep of the Bulldogs. On Tuesday night, they couldn’t have asked for a better start.

Junior Grant McGuffey drove in four runs as Cedar Ridge stormed out to a 5-0 lead and dominated Walter Williams 12-2 in five innings at Red Wolves Field. Senior Quinn Finnegan, who has committed to Division I Wagner College, earned his first win of the season by striking out five in four innings.

The first six Red Wolves to step up to the plate all reached in the bottom of the first, starting with a line drive up the middle by Ian McGuffey. After junior Dominic Sena walked, John Grove loaded the bases on an infield hit. Grant McGuffey drove in two runs with another single to centerfield. Finnegan scored Grove on a throwing error to first base. Freshman Jesse Velazquez drew a bases-loaded walk to score Finnegan.

Cedar Ridge added two more runs in the second inning starting with singles from Sena and Grove. Aidan Ryan lined to right field to score Sena and McGuffey.

Grove, who finished 3-for-3, doubled to right field in the bottom of the third to score Ian McGuffey, who reached off a single to centerfield.

Finnegan led off the fourth with a hard grounder to left field for a single. John Morgan reached on an error, allowing Finnegan to reach third base. Cedar Ridge executed a double steal where Morgan reached 2nd while Finnegan scored off the throw. Velazquez popped out to centerfield and scored Morgan on a sacrifice.

Cedar Ridge (2-4 overall, 1-0 in the Central Conference) will host Chapel Hill on Wednesday night at 7.

Orange 7, East Chapel Hill 1: After struggling offensively in consecutive losses to Millbrook and Grimsley last week, Orange took advantage of free bases to secure a win over the Wildcats in Hillsborough on Tuesday night.

Garrett Sawyer sent a classic pop-up home run over Orange’s left field porch  to even the game in the third inning, then reached base on the most crucial sequence of the game during a four-run 4th inning. After Mason Grooms got on board with a roller to right field with two out, Kayden Bradsher was beaned on the front leg. Sawyer swung and missed at a 1-2 pitch, but the ball bounced off the dirt and ricocheted off the fence. Sawyer raced down the line off the dropped 3rd strike to load the bases.

Sophomore Oliver Van Tiem walked with the bases loaded to put Orange ahead 2-1. Designated hitter Henry Hoffman, batting cleanup for the first time in his career, drilled a two-run single up the middle to score Grooms and Bradsher. Gary Miller drilled a single to left field, advancing Hoffman to third. East Chapel Hill installed Tomas Robertson as pitcher to replace starter Ryan Cabe, who moved to catcher. As Eli Horton was at bat, Cabe threw the ball back after an 0-1 pitch over the head of Robertson, which allowed Hoffman to score and increase the Orange lead to 6-1.

Ryan Sawyer earned his third win of the season by striking out ten over five innings. He allowed one run over six hits with zero walks.

Garrett Sawyer started the sixth inning with a double to Scoreboard Ally in right centerfield, the deepest part of Panther Field. Van Tiem sent a fly ball to right field that was dropped, sending Sawyer to third. Hoffman drove in his third run of the game with a fielder’s choice to East Chapel Hill shortstop Sam Smith, who threw out Van Tiem to second but scored Sawyer.

Brown and Grooms threw the sixth and seventh innings, respectively, to close out the win for Orange (4-3).

Since 2021, a softball team currently in the Central Conference has won the 3A Eastern Regional Championship three times. Two of them won state championships.

In the final year of possibly the most powerful softball conference in the state, Orange used its potent batting lineup to win its league opener at Western Alamance.

The Lady Panthers put up eight runs in the fourth inning, then held off a Warriors rally to win 13-10 in its final league trip to Elon on Tuesday night.

Allie Carden put the exclamation point on the decisive frame with a grand slam, vaulting the Lady Panthers ahead 11-2. Allie had two at-bats in the frame. She rounded the bases after sending a fly ball to right field at the fence, which was dropped, leading to a Little League home run.

At that point, Orange’s lead was only 4-2 and it appeared that would be all after the next two batters grounded out. Then the Lady Panthers scored seven runs with two outs, starting with senior Rhiley Crabtree and Natalie Roberson each hitting singles. Senior Sadie Cecil dropped a fly ball into centerfield to score Crabtree. Camryn Rodrigues replaced Addison Beal as Western pitcher, but Orange scored when Katie Carden drew a bases-loaded walk to score Roberson.

On the verge of getting run-ruled, Western Alamance came back with five runs in its side of the fifth inning, capped by a two-run homer from Rodrigues.

Cecil struck back with  a RBI single to centerfield to score Molly Kate Ollis in the fifth, putting Orange ahead 12-7. Hayleigh Hammond dropped down a sacrifice bunt to score freshman Reese Blank, who reached on a pinch-hit single to right field earlier in the inning.

Cecil finished 3-for-5 with three RBIs. Katie Carden drove in four runs, including the opening tally of the night with an RBI single in the third inning.

Orange sophomore Addison Guentensberger threw six innings to earn the win.

Cedar Ridge 15, Person 2, 5 innings: 

Cedar Ridge smashed a season-high 18 hits, including three hits each from senior Kimber Shambley and freshman Reagan Remaly, in an each win in Roxboro on Tuesday night.

Senior Reagan Simmons hit a solo homer in the second inning as the Red Wolves bounced back from a crushing home loss to Eastern Alamance to even its league record to 1-1. In five innings of work, senior Charlotte Lowry struck out nine to improve to 3-1.

Cedar Ridge chained together three consecutive singles to scratch the opening run across. Remaly and Shambley each reached. Junior Rylee Capps lined to center to score Remaly.

Simmons home run in the third help the Red Wolves pull away. Remaly singled and stole second with Shambley at bat. Shambley earned her second hit with a fly ball that dropped into right field. On a double steal with Capps at the plate, Remaly scored as Shambley bolted for second. Capps then earned another RBI with a single to right field.

Cedar Ridge sent 14 batters to the plate during a 10-run fourth inning. Mia Best sent a two-run single to centerfield that brought in Parker Kennedy and Brittany Goddard, putting the Red Wolves ahead 6-0. Simmons stroked an RBI single to score Madeline Galindo-Woodring. Remaly hit a two-run single on a worm burner to right field to score Best and Simmons. Then Remaly scored off a single from Capps, along with a throwing error by a Person outfielder. In her second at-bat of the inning, Goddard hit an RBI double to score Laci Sykes. Earlier in the frame, Goddard reached on an error.

Best increased Cedar Ridge’s lead to 14-0 with a two-run double to left field.

In a pinch-hitting situation, Emma Going hit a RBI single in the fifth inning to score Shambley.

Cedar Ridge will host Falls Lake on Thursday night in Hillsborough.

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This week’s Orange Panther of the Week is senior wrestler Braden Crawford. This winter, Crawford won his third Central Conference Tournament championship. In January at Williams High School, Crawford pinned James Farmer of Person in the championship match to claim the 138-pounds title. He finished undefeated against conference opponents in his career during a time when Cedar Ridge and Person fielded some of their best teams in their respective histories. A starter since his freshman year, Crawford qualified for the state championships three times. He finished this season 28-7 and won over 100 matches in his career. In his junior season, Crawford finished 33-6 and wound up beating Takota Tala of Parkwood in Greensboro during the consolation round. In 2024, he finished fourth in the Mideast Regionals at 126-pounds. In his sophomore year, Crawford finished 2nd in the Mideast Regionals at Cedar Ridge High School, beating Ethan Croom of West Johnston to reach the final at 126 pounds. He won two matches at the 2023 State Championships, beating Matthew Mehaffey of Pisgah 7-5 in overtime. He also scored a major decision Styler Oxford of West Carteret. Crawford will continue his wrestling career at Ferrum College in Virginia, which is transitioning to Division II and will compete in Conference Carolinas. He will be coached by former Orange star Braden Homsey, who is an assistant with Ferrum.

Orange Panther of the Week: Braden Crawford

This week’s Orange Panther of the Week is senior wrestler Braden Crawford. This winter, Crawford won his third Central Conference Tournament championship. In January at Williams High School, Crawford pinned James Farmer of Person in the championship match to claim the 138-pounds title.

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The clever way of putting the new conference realignment plan for Cedar Ridge and Orange would be:

tired: trips to Alamance County.

Wired: trips to Granville County.

But that isn’t the truth. The fact is most, though certainly not all, of the athletes and coaches across both schools aren’t tired of the rivalries that have built up over the past four years in the Central Conference, predominantly comprised of teams from Alamance County.

The days of the Central Conference will end in May.

On Wednesday, the North Carolina High School Athletic Association released its final conference realignment plan. Orange and Cedar Ridge will remain in a conference together, both categorized as 5A teams. The new league, which hasn’t been named, will also include J.F. Webb, South Granville, Durham School of the Arts, Seaforth and Carrboro.

Cedar Ridge and Orange have been conference rivals in various leagues since 2012, when Cedar Ridge returned to the 3A ranks after being a 2A squad and the Hillsborough teams were placed in the old Big 8 Conference.

For the first time since 2012, Cedar Ridge will be in a split classification conference. Carrboro will be a 4A team in the new league, while the other six teams will be 5A squads. The last time Orange was in a split league was in the 2008-2009 academic year, when they were in the 2A/1A Mid-State Conference.

Under the new arrangement, Person will maintain its rivalries with the Alamance County schools. The Rockets will play in a three classification league with Walter Williams, Eastern Alamance, Southern Alamance, Southeast Alamance, Graham, Cummings and Western Alamance.

The realignment committee had a tall task of trying to maintain conference rivalries as the NCHSAA expanded from a four classification system, which dates back to 1960, to eight classifications in order to rectify the demands of one of the fastest growing states in the country.

The second draft of conference alignment was released in January. It proposed Orange and Cedar Ridge with South Granville, Webb, Seaforth, and DSA in a league comprised only of 5A schools. Orange principal Jason Johnson and athletic director Jason Knapp both made personal appeals to the realignment committee in Chapel Hill last month, asking that Orange remain with their current conference rivals.

“My reservation about going into a new conference is we’re killing our rivalries with Alamance County,” Johnson said last month during a basketball doubleheader. “We have longstanding rivalries. Eastern Alamance, Western Alamance, Williams. Those have been some of our biggest rivals. The community expects us to play those teams.”

The only change in the third and final draft was the addition of Carrboro, which originally was slated to be in a league with schools from Chatham and Randolph Counties.

Once that draft was issued, Johnson and Knapp sensed the direction things were going and didn’t bother making another appeal.

It’s widely believed the impetus to keep the Alamance County schools together was financial. With seven of the eight schools within Alamance County, it simply keeps schools from traveling long distances for league games.

The creation of the Central Conference in 2021 reinvigorated local rivalries with Eastern Alamance and Person, which had been put on the backburner for years. It created a dichotomy.

In regards to football, the timing couldn’t have been worse. After Payton Wilson graduated in 2017, the talent level around Orange football hasn’t been at the level of its peak in the 2010s under Pat Moser. At another time, an Orange-Eastern Alamance conference rivalry would have resulted in sellout crowds in Hillsborough and Mebane, particularly since they traditionally close the regular season against each other.

Even with Orange going seven straight years without a winning season, the attendance figures for conference football games against Alamance and Person County schools were strong. It was something athletic officials around Orange and Cedar Ridge were reluctant to part with.

For other sports, the Central Conference led to unprecedented success for the two Hillsborough schools in various sports. In the opening fall of the league back in 2021, Cedar Ridge volleyball survived a buzz saw of a schedule that included powerhouse teams from Northwood, Orange and Person and rode on to the 2021 3A state championship.

Orange volleyball won the 3A Eastern regional title in 2023. The Panthers’ men’s cross country team captured the state championship in November and has won three straight regional titles. The men’s swimming team won its first regional championship in February. The lacrosse team took the 3A/2A/1A Eastern Regional championship for the first time last May.

Orange won nine conference championships last academic year and has won the award for the top athletic program in the league each of the last two years.

Now, Orange and Cedar Ridge will be put together against schools they haven’t shared a league with in many years and, in a few cases, ever.

J.F. Webb was in the Big 8 Conference with Orange and Cedar Ridge back in from 2013-to-2017. When Carrboro High opened in 2007, they were in a 2A/1A league with Orange. Durham School of the Arts, which traces its heritage to the original Durham High School, was in a league with Orange in the late 2000s.

DSA hasn’t fielded a football teams since its final days as Durham High School in the mid-1990s.