LUMBERTON, N.C. – With the Richmond Senior High School junior varsity football team heading into its game against Lumberton High School Thursday night, head coach Patrick Hope was concerned that distractions from Homecoming Week might interfere with his team’s concentration.
Even though it took a couple of quarters for the Raiders to get going, they used all facets of the game to remain undefeated, beating the Pirates 27-8.
Lumberton’s only score of the night came off of penalties by Richmond’s defense, and after a converted 2-point conversion, the Raiders found themselves down 8-0 going into the second quarter.
After a solid run by sophomore running back LaCyruss Ellerbe got the offense moving before half, sophomore quarterback Noah Altman had a 45-yard pass to sophomore wide receiver Hakeim Blue to get the Raiders on the board.
Midway through the second quarter, Richmond’s special teams got in on the action (like they have all year) when Xavion Lindsey ran back a 70-yard punt return to put Richmond on top 13-8 after a missed extra point attempt. That would be the score the Raiders took into the locker room at halftime.
On the Raiders first possession in the second half, sophomore running back Tashawn Wall ran it in from eight yards out for a touchdown to put Richmond up 20-8. To cap things off in the running game, Ellerbe would follow up with his second score of the night from the 10-yard line in the fourth quarter to put the game out of reach at 27-8.
Once again, the passing game, running game, defense and special teams all contributed to keep Richmond undefeated, something that Hope said was necessary to in order to so.
“I felt like we played with effort, and when we were focused we did what we wanted,” Hope said after the game. “Lumberton did a good job of slowing the game down when it was close. They also had some good athletes that made some plays. We just have to clean up our game next week against Seventy-First.”
The Raiders (8-0, 5-0 SAC) will again be on the road next week when they to travel to Fayetteville to face Seventy-First High School at 6:30 p.m. next Thursday.
