LAURINBURG — Ending its regular season with an exclamation point, the Lady Raider tennis team completed the season sweep of rival Scotland High School on Thursday.
A day after rolling past Lee County for a senior night win, the Lady Raiders carried the same momentum over to hand Scotland a 7-2 defeat.
“This was exactly the way we wanted to finish our season,” head coach Jessica Covington said. “We knew we had a good chance to beat our rival, and that’s always a good feeling.
“The girls have worked really hard late in the season and we were able to win three of our last four matches,” she added. “I’m so proud of every single girl and the effort each player put forth this season. We had a lot of fun, learned a lot and picked up several good wins.”
The Lady Raiders earned four wins in singles play and followed that by sweeping all three doubles competitions.
Richmond’s No. 3 through No. 6 singles players each earned a victory, starting with No. 3 senior Addison Massey. Competing against Carson Buie, Massey secured an 8-4 win.
No. 4 sophomore Hanna Smith continued her impressive season with another victory, defeating Maleah Locklear in 8-2 fashion.
Senior Maren Carter won her second match in as many days in the No. 5 slot, but had to go to a tiebreaker with Lillie Rankin. The two battled out to an 8-8 tie before Carter rallied to win the extra set 7-5.
Rounding out the singles wins was No. 6 senior Ashlyn Bouldin, who edged Rhea Truesdell 8-4. No. 1 Hana Oki and No. 2 Neely Turner fell 7-9 and 2-8, respectively.
Needing just one more win in doubles to ice the match, the Lady Raiders took all three doubles pairings for good measure. Oki and Turner redeemed themselves with an 8-2 win over Laura Wlodarczak and Valeria Carranza.
The No. 2 duo of Massey and Smith cruised past Buie and Locklear 8-1, and Bouldin and senior Savannah Jordan boasted an 8-1 win against Rankin and Madelynn Butler.
Richmond finished the regular season with a 6-6 overall record, all against Sandhills Athletic Conference opponents.
