SOUTHERN PINES — The Richmond Senior High School junior varsity football team was averaging 24.6 points per game heading into Thursday’s Sandhills Athletic Conference game against Pinecrest High School.
That number would take an unfortunate dive for the JV Raiders, as Richmond suffered its first conference loss in over three years. What turned out to be a defensive tug-of-war between the Raiders and Patriots, it would be the home team that escaped with a 9-6 win.
The slugfest was nearly evenly matched, seeing head coach Patrick Hope’s Raiders collect 184 yards of total offense to Pinecrest’s 194 yards of total offense. Richmond won the first down game with 10 on the night, while the Patriots picked up nine.
“The game played out like we expected,” Hope said. “We wanted to make Pinecrest play four quarters and find ourselves a way to win at the end since Pinecrest hadn’t had to do that all season. We just ended up on the wrong side of the score.”
Following a five-play drive and a punt by the Raiders to start the game, Pinecrest responded with a six-play, 61-yard march to score the game’s opening touchdown. A 39-yard passing play put the Patriots at Richmond’s 10-yard line, and on the next play, Pinecrest used a 10-yard rushing score to go up 6-0. Going for two, a swarm of Raider defenders made the stop to hold the score with 7:22 left in the opening quarter.
On the ensuing drive, Richmond entered the red zone and was just four yards away from pay dirt. Freshman quarterback Emoni McBride, who was making just his second career start, handed the ball off two straight times to sophomore running back Nasir Crumpton, and once more to freshman Xavier Wall, but the Pinecest defense stopped the Raiders on fourth-and-goal.
A couple of series later, the Raider special teams unit saw sophomore Kelay Lindsey block a punt at the Pinecrest 40-yard line. Fellow sophomore Mikey Baldwin scooped up the bouncing ball and returned it to the 37-yard line before fumbling it. Luckily, freshman teammate Tez Anderson fell on it at the 34-yard line to maintain possession.
The efforts by the special teams unit wouldn’t go unanswered, as freshman running back Brandon Askins pounded the ball on three-straight plays to get to the Pinecrest five-yard line, including a 21-yard gain on fourth-and-two.
On the next play, McBride kept the snap to himself and barged ahead for a five-yard rushing score to knot the game 6-6 with 2:48 to go in the opening half. Freshman Dylan Locklear’s point after attempt missed the uprights, and the score would hold until the halftime break.
The second half saw just three points cross the board, as a 21-yard field goal by Pinecrest with 9:32 left in the fourth quarter would prove to be the difference maker. Richmond’s offense had four second-half possessions, punting and fumbling once, and turning the ball over twice on downs on its final two possessions.
The Raider defense managed to force three fumbles on the night, seeing sophomore linebackers Gabe Altman and Baldwin, along with sophomore cornerback Cason Douglas recover the ball.
It was Altman’s second-straight game with a fumble recovery, and Douglas added the fumble pickup to his team-high four interceptions this season. Richmond also recorded three sacks in the game.
“Our defense settled in and played well for four quarters,” Hope said. “We held a Pinecrest team that was averaging 48 points per game to just nine.
“We had a lot of opportunities to close in on them offensively, but just came up short,” he closed. “Brandon Askins and Jamari Broady gave us a spark offensively and we got the ball to four different receivers in Javares Stanback, Chandler Orr, Trey Thomas and Dante Baldwin.”
After missing just one pass attempt in his JV debut, McBride was 9-for-23 passing for 58 yards against Pinecrest. The ground game was impressive seeing Askins collect 72 of Richmond’s 126 rushing yards on 12 attempts. Wall (seven rushes) and sophomore Jamari Broady (three attempts) both added 24 rushing yards to the stat sheet.
The JV Raiders (2-2) will look to reset when they host Jack Britt High School on Thursday, Oct. 10, in another SAC battle. Kickoff is set for 6:30 p.m.
