CHAPEL HILL — Locking in its spot in the postseason for the seventh straight year, the Lady Raider soccer team will hit the road in the first round of the state playoffs.
The North Carolina High School Athletic Association released its playoff brackets for all classifications on Friday. Richmond, which competes in the 4A East, earned the No. 32 seed.
Heading into playoff seeding, head coach Chris Larsen knew the Lady Raiders were a bubble team. But he said he was glad the team’s efforts paid off to get Richmond back to the postseason.
Formula used for playoff seeding
As with all of the other NCHSAA sanctioned sports this school year, playoff berths were determined using a team’s rating percentage index (RPI).
According to the NCHSAA’s website, RPI is calculated by using the following formula: RPI = (0.3 x WP) + (0.4 x OWP) + (0.3 x OOWP).
WP stands for a team’s “winning percentage” (divide the number of wins by the number of total games played).
OWP is the “opponents’ winning percentage” (average the winning percentages of a team’s opponents) and OOWP is the “opponents’ opponents winning percentage” (the same process but for the opponents of a team’s opponents).
Road trip to Wilmington
The first round of the 4A East playoffs kicks off on Monday, and the Lady Raiders are heading to the beach to play. Richmond, the lowest seed in the bracket, will face No. 1 Hoggard High School.
Richmond finished as the second-place 4A team in the Sandhills Athletic Conference this spring. Larsen and company will enter the playoffs with a 10-11-1 overall record and have scored 34 goals in 22 matches (1.5 goals per match).
The Lady Raiders’ RPI was 0.490123, just ahead of Overhills High School (0.484545), which didn’t make the cut for the state playoffs.
Richmond’s winning percentage was 0.477273, had an OWP of 0.467406 and an OOWP of 0.533263.
Junior Cheyenne Jacobs leads the team with seven goals this season, followed by sophomore Allie Rodgers (6) and freshman Jamyia Lindsey (4).
Hoggard currently has a 17-1-1 record and is riding a 15-match winning streak going into the playoffs. As the top seed, Hoggard’s RPI was 0.676513.
Coached by Justin Schatz, the Lady Vikings have netted 89 goals this spring (4.7 goals per match) and allowed just eight goals (0.4 goals against average).Twelve of the team’s wins have been shutouts.
During the current streak of making the playoffs since 2015, the Lady Raiders are looking to make it to the second round for the second time.
In 2019, Richmond had a first-round bye as a No. 8 seed following a previous format.
No. 32 Richmond will visit No. 1 Hoggard on Monday, with a start time set for 6 p.m.
LINK: NCHSAA girls’ soccer playoff brackets
