ROCKINGHAM – The Lady Raiders basketball team found itself in another winnable game Tuesday night inside Raider Gym against the Bucks of Hoke County High School. But it wasn’t able to ever sustain a lead and eventually lost 52-44.
Richmond played the full-court press early on, but seemed to get away from the pressure defense halfway through the first quarter. As a result, the Lady Raiders’ only lead came at the very beginning when junior guard Taliah Wall put in a breakaway layup that started Richmond up 2-0.
“We do the full court press regularly,” said head coach Rosalind McDonald.
Unfortunately for McDonald’s crew, a more lax approach on defense led to Hoke going up 7-6 early in the first quarter and never really having to look back.
The Lady Bucks found themselves up 12-10 after the first, but it wasn’t from a lack of game from Wall as she contributed eight of the Lady Raiders 10 points early on. Sophomore guard Allexis Swiney chipped in the other two points.
The Lady Raiders actually went up again for the second time in the game 14-12 in the first minute of the second quarter after two-pointers from both Hailey Miller and Swiney.Â
Richmond applied pressure once again with the press in the second quarter, a technique that not only worked some Tuesday night, but has also been effective in past games in the form of forcing turnovers.
Wall scored on a drive, but missed the ensuing and-one free throw. However, the Lady Raiders stole the ball back and Anajah Redfern was fouled. She also failed to make the second of a one-and-one.
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The Lady Raiders went into halftime down 22-18 with Wall scoring three in the quarter, Swiney adding two and Miller and Redfern one apiece, respectively. Richmond shot five-of-nine from the free throw line in the first half.
Coming out of halftime, Hoke County tried a full-court press of its own to start the second half and scored four straight points before Swiney ended the scoring drought with a layup just over two minutes into the third.
Richmond was able to close the gap to within three points at 32-29, but Hoke scored again to put them up by five, 34-29. The Lady Bucks ended the third ahead 36-29, as the Lady Raiders were outscored 14-11 in that quarter with Swiney leading Lady Raider scorers with six points.
Hoke County began the final quarter on an 8-3 run before Dannon Shepard drained the Lady Raiders first and only three-pointer to cut the score to 46-35.
With the clock winding down, the Lady Raiders made a late push with a steal from Keionna Love, who then converted the shot to get Richmond to within five points with a minute and a half left to play.
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Wall also made a layup with a minute left that kept Richmond within five, but Hoke was able to make free throws down the stretch that didn’t allow the Raiders to close the gap.
Love chipped in six of her total nine points in the fourth quarter. Wall led all Richmond scorers with 16 points in the game, Swiney added another 11, Shepard scored three points and Miller and Ingram had two apiece.
The Lady Raiders were outscored once again in the fourth quarter 16-15, but shot 6-8 from the free throw line in that time period, and 14-20 overall in the game from the charity stripe. That amounts to 70 percent for the game and is something McDonald said the team works on on a daily basis.
“We shoot free throws every day in practice, and free throws can make or break a game,” McDonald said. “I wish that stat was higher, but it’s an improvement from early on in the season.”
The Raiders were also tasked with shutting down reigning conference player of the year Mahogany Matthews, who scored a game-high 25 of Hoke County’s 52 overall points.
“Obviously we didn’t do good enough because she was able to put up a lot of points on the board,” McDonald said of stopping Matthews. “She’s a tough player and anytime you go against a top competitor like that, it’s going to be hard to defend. She’s a great player. We just didn’t stop her as much as we needed to.”
Richmond (5-10, 3-7 SAC) will stay at home when it faces off with Sandhills Athletic Conference foe Lumberton High School Wednesday at 6 p.m.
“We’re just focusing on one game at a time, and I think we need to step up our game on defense and get a little more intense on defense,” said McDonald about facing the Lady Pirates. “We need to knock some more shots down.”
