LAURINBURG — History was made in thrilling fashion for the Richmond Senior High School boys’ basketball team on Friday.
For the first time in the program’s 51-season history, the team completed an undefeated sweep of conference opponents during the Raiders’ regular-season finale.
With the 2022-23 Sandhills Athletic Conference championship already secured last week, the Raiders padded their perfect record with a 69-45 win over rival Scotland High School.
Extending their season-long winning streak to 14 games, the Raiders overcame a slow offensive start, much like they did in the teams’ first meeting three weeks ago.
Playing in front of a playoff-like atmosphere, the Raiders were led by junior Paul McNeil Jr.’s double-double (16 points, 10 rebounds). Fellow junior Jamarion Wall added 16 points in the win, netting 11 points in a runaway fourth quarter.
Two other juniors, Jullien Cole and Javian Drake, tacked on 13 and 11 points, respectively. Cole, along with seniors Zion Baldwin and Dakota Chavis, each grabbed five boards.
A three-pointer from freshman Jayden Hamilton and the first two of McNeil Jr.’s points saw the game start out to a 5-5 tie. Stealing the ball and laying it in for his two points, Chavis started an 8-0 run to end the remainder of the first quarter.
McNeil Jr. and Drake hit consecutive three-pointers from the right corner in the final 30 seconds to make it a 13-5 advantage heading into the second.
As a team, Richmond netted 11 triples, led by Wall’s four. Both Drake and McNeil Jr. had three apiece in the win.
Junior Dylan Lampley, who head coach Donald Pettigrew credited for his defensive hustle in the win, ended the first with a timely block of Isaac Ferguson. That helped shift the game’s momentum into Richmond’s favor for good.
That late stretch in the first carried over into the second, turning into 18 unanswered points by the Raiders. Taking its largest lead of the first half, 23-5, Richmond used a Cole transition bucket, a Drake three-ball and five straight points from Wall to open the scoring.
A 6-0 response from second-place Scotland (17-7, 8-4 SAC) was ended when McNeil Jr. hit a stepback jumper at the 3:18 mark. With just over a minute left, Cole elevated for a dunk on a fastbreak to carry a 27-16 lead into halftime.
The Raiders outscored Scotland 16-13 in a back-and-forth third quarter. Baldwin, who added six points, opened the period with two shots from under the rim. Cole drove the paint for two more points to extend the lead to 33-21.
A McNeil Jr. triple from the left corner, coupled with another bucket from both Baldwin and Cole, led to a technical foul free throw from McNeil Jr. at the 1:10 mark. Two more points from Cole at the buzzer off the glass maintained a 43-29 lead.
Five Raiders combined for the team’s final 26 points in the closing eight minutes. Drake started the scoring with his final three-pointer from the right corner.
Wall kickstarted his big quarter with a trey from the left corner with 6:10 to play and Drake slid through a pair of defenders for his final two points of the game.
Cole followed with a baseline dunk over a Scotland defender, extending up and over the player to put Richmond up 20 points. He added the and-one opportunity to end his scoring.
Leading 54-38, Wall rattled home two more triples from the left corner and added a field goal in the paint.
McNeil Jr. scored his final shot from downtown from the same spot and capped his scoring with a transition bucket. Netting Richmond’s final two points in the game was junior David McNair in the closing minute.
Lamonte Cousar led all scorers with 22 points for Scotland. Adding eight points in the loss for the Scots was Jonathan Graham.
As the No. 1 seed, the Raiders will get a first-round bye in the SAC tournament, which will begin next week.
Richmond (21-2, 12-0 SAC) will return to action on Wednesday in the second round against the winner of No. 4 Hoke County (10-4, 7-5 SAC) and the No. 5 Southern Lee (9-14, 3-9 SAC).
Note: At the time of publication, Richmond was ranked as the No. 2 team in the 4A East based on the NCHSAA’s RPI rankings. Deon Cranford also contributed information to this article.
