BY JOE JOHNSON

jjohnson@heraldsun.com; 419-6667

HILLSBOROUGH — When Cedar Ridge and Orange play football, the games have had memorable moments.

They were mostly good for Orange and mostly bad for Cedar Ridge. But on Friday night, Cedar Ridge pulled out a 28-27 overtime victory that will go down as one of the best in the young series.

In overtime, senior Jake Geary scored on a 5-yard rush up the middle for Cedar Creek, then Orange’s Drevis Torain came back for the Panthers with a 1-yard dive.

Orange coach Pat Moser and his staff decided to go a two-point conversion, but it failed as Panthers quarterback Fred Blanks was sacked on the play by Ben Gregory to preserve the win for Cedar Ridge.

“I just went for it and made a play,” Gregory said. “They hadn’t been trying to block me. It was great to win.”

Cedar Ridge, which won for only the second time in seven games against Orange, rallied from a 21-7 halftime deficit behind the running of Brent Burnette, who scored on runs of

7 and 15 yards to tie the game. His second touchdown with 7:25 left in the game made the score 21-19, and Cedar Ridge converted a two-point conversion on a run by Josh Evarts to tie the score. Burnette led all rushers with 97 yards on 15 carries.

In previous games, Cedar Ridge coach Lou Geary said he could point to single plays that turned the tide against his team. But in this game, the Red Wolves dodged a pair.

First, Cedar Ridge flubbed a punt deep in their own end when Hunter Moran was unable to field a bad snap and Orange’s Shae Breeze recovered it at the 11 with 2:48 to play.

The Panthers had a golden opportunity to win the game, and Moser called three straight running plays but gained very little yardage. He was happy to get a field goal attempt, but Conner Kileen hooked it left with 43.6 seconds left in the game.

“We weren’t going to throw it in that situation,” Moser said. “We felt it was going to be an easy field goal. He just missed it. That’s the way it goes.”

In overtime, Cedar Ridge got the ball first and took only two plays to score. Jake Geary’s run off left tackle was a little adventurous, as he nearly fumbled the handoff before hugging the ball back into his possession and driving into the end zone.

“It was such a game of inches,” Jake Geary said. “I’m so happy we won. You never know what’s going to happen in this game against Orange.”

When Orange got the ball, the first play was an apparent touchdown pass to Jamaal Owens, but he was called for offensive pass interference. Facing a second-and-goal from the 25 after the penalty, Blanks hooked up with Owens again and got the ball to the 2. It took two plays before Torain, who finished with 67 yards on 20 carries, found the end zone to set up the Panthers’ game-winning two-point attempt.

“When it got to overtime, we didn’t think we could trade touchdown for touchdown with them and their power running game,” Moser said. “We couldn’t stop them. We decided to go for the win.”

Lou Geary said he had flashbacks to other games against Orange when the punt attempt went haywire.

“We were in big trouble after that play,” Lou Geary said. “But we were able to overcome it for what’s probably the biggest win we’ve ever had. This game worked for us like it did for them in the past. We’ve always had the lead and they’ve come back on us. This time, we came back for the win.”

Orange got a pair of 3-yard touchdown runs by Thomas Jones and Drevis Torain and Jake Geary’s first touchdown for Cedar Ridge. The Panthers then added to their lead just before halftime as Jones hauled in a five-yard touchdown pass from Blanks to make it 21-7.

“We overcame a lot to get this win,” Lou Geary said. “We were down at halftime, but I told them that if Orange had done it to us in the past, then we could do it to them tonight.”