ROCKINGHAM — Monday’s matchup for the Richmond Senior High School varsity girls basketball team was deja vu for the Lady Raiders — but not in the way head coach Teddy Moseley would have liked.
The Lady Raiders fell back to the .500 mark on the season after losing to non-conference opponent Ronald Reagan High School 43-28. It marks the second time in two weeks that Richmond fell to the Reagan Lady Raiders, as they also lost on the road on Dec. 7 by a final score of 60-40.
Much like the first meeting, Richmond struggled with ball control, hitting shots from the field and rebounding the ball. All three were aspects that Moseley reflected on heavily after the Lady Raiders’ (4-4) second-straight loss.
“We don’t box out and we don’t play team defense,” the head coach explained. “We also don’t make free throws, and we throw the ball (away) to the other team. We shot 9-of-60 from the field (tonight), and had 33 turnovers.
“All of these things I go over in pre-game,” Moseley added. “We watch the ball and lose sight of who we are guarding. And we dribbled the ball to the sidelines right into the trap. I’m constantly telling my players how to prevent all of these things from happening, but we do it anyway.”
Richmond would only muster 12 points in the first half, and its 28 total points marked a season low.
Both teams started out hot in the first quarter, but an early 8-8 tie soon turned into a 12-point Reagan lead by the end of the first quarter. Early buckets by Jayla McDougald, Jakerra Covington, Allyiah Swiney and Bree Wall kept Richmond on Reagan’s heels, but a 5:05 scoring drought followed for the Lady Raiders, letting Reagan (4-3) take a lead it wouldn’t surrender.
A pair of free throws by Reagan’s Adrianna Gullette at the 2:13 mark of the first quarter sparked a 12-0 run by Reagan to close out the opening frame. Gullette would add a putback shot under the basket, as teammates Annie Kelly, Katie Cothran and Eleanor Saunders contributed to the run.
The second quarter only saw seven total points scored between both teams, as Reagan entered the locker room with a 23-12 lead. Scoring all four of Richmond’s points was junior guard Allexis Swiney, as she hit a spinning shot in the paint to end the scoring drought, followed by a shot from under the hoop after stealing an inbound pass.
Richmond’s best scoring quarter of the night came in the third stanza, as the Lady Raiders managed to net 10 points. Covington hit a free throw on a one-and-one opportunity, which sparked an 8-0 Richmond run that cut the deficit to just five points, 25-20. That stretch also saw junior Layne Maultsby drain a contested three-pointer from the top of the key.
But that would be the closest Moseley’s Lady Raiders would get, as a 9-2 run in the final three minutes of the quarter by Reagan opened the game up to 34-22.
The 12-point deficit was extended to a game-high 20 points, thanks to another big run by the Reagan Lady Raiders to begin the fourth quarter. Senior Taniya Ford contributed six of her team’s eight points during a 8-0 run, with Nytrinitey Jenkins laying in a bucket in transition to put Reagan up 44-24 with just under five minutes to play.
Four different Richmond players (Allexis and Allyiah Swiney, Maultsby and senior Taliah Wall) knocked down shots from the charity stripe to close out the game’s scoring, but it wasn’t enough to right the ship.
Allexis Swiney finished the game as Richmond’s leading scorer with seven points. Covington added five more, while Maultsby and McDougald each had four points apiece.
The next time the Lady Raiders will hit the court will be at the Anson Shootout, which is scheduled for Friday, Dec. 21, and Saturday, Dec. 22, at Anson High School. Richmond will face Union Academy at 4 p.m. on Friday to open the holiday tournament.
