Dylan Mckinnon, a junior, said that the team had to work on all their skills. They tried a new tactic called man-to-man defense, which seemed to work, but still needed more practice. One factor that really hurt the team was that the game was held on senior skip day so the team was missing a lot of players. Mckinnon said, “I had 17 saves and Chris Lamay had a good shot from outside the attack box,” and went on to talk about how the team is improving. Lamay, featured in picture on right, is a senior.
The next match is Monday, April 15 and is away at East Chapel Hill High School. This match is rescheduled from March 12 when it was canceled due to rain.
Also this week, the lacrosse team is away against the Cedar Ridge Red Wolves Tuesday, April 16. Friday, April 19, the lacrosse team has a home match against Chapel Hill High School. Junior varsity will play at 5 p.m. and varsity will play at 7 p.m for all three matches.
The one goal scored for OHS was shot by, sophomore, Bowen Collins.
The Cedar Ridge Red Wolves were fluent in the passes and the offense kept the ball forward for the majority of the game. The OHS Panthers, on the other hand, seemed to be having trouble communicating where to move the ball and did not work well with their teammates. They had very few clean passes and even fewer catches.
OHS seemed to struggle communicating with their team members’, and frequently would try to score without passing to their teammates, even if they were open. At some points, the team could even be seen fighting over getting the ball with each other.
With the poor performance of the offense and defense, the goalkeeper, Junior, Dylan McKinnon, was confronted with numerous shots by Cedar Ridge where they were standing right next to the goal, which gave him no reasonable chance to react.
While the Red Wolves’ did score 17 times, McKinnon saved a total of 18 shots.
OHS’ defense seemed to be too concerned with getting the ball rather than making sure they were covering the Red Wolves’ offense, forcing McKinnon to be overwhelmed by the close shots taken by the Cedar Ridge offense.
The OHS Lacrosse team, usually at least an adequate team, struggled and suffered a tremendous loss against the Red Wolves.
There were five teams competing at the classic. The OHS team dominated with 273 points while the second place team, Northwest Guilford, had a distant 180 points. Thirteen out of fourteen wrestlers placed there. Jack Twomey-Kozak, Anderson Pope, and Bryon Stephenson all got first place in their own weight divisions.
The other past matches were the Thanksgiving Duel, JKO/Orange Invitational, and the Eden Holiday Classic Duels. Orange placed first at the Thanksgiving duel which was against three other schools. That was also the first match of the season. The Eden Holiday Classic was hosted all the way at Morehead High School on the NC coast. Orange received second place there after some tough matches against three other schools as well.
The JKO is a huge wrestling tournament dedicated to Jim King. The Invitational lasts through Friday and Saturday. At the end of it all Orange got third out of twenty-two teams. Kozak, Pope, and David Peters-Logue were first in their weight divisions. Orange was given the Team Sportsmanship award by the Air Force which was a huge honor.
The Varsity Wrestling team is led by Coach Shiner and J.V. is led by Brian Schnee. Spenser Poteat, Jack Lyle, Kyle Long, Aaron Holt, and Larry Smith are all assistant coaches. Collin Cockerham, junior, said “Coach Shriner is a great coach.” He has really enjoyed being a part of the team all three years he has been at Orange. Dylan Mckinnon, junior, agreed that he enjoyed being on the team.
The season started off on November 1st and the team is still going strong. The next match will be the Sgt. Mark Adams Tournament at Cary High School both Friday and Saturday. Thirty schools will be attending and they expect a huge turn out. State Tournaments will start in early February.