LUMBERTON — In action for the second night in a row, the Lady Raider varsity soccer team used three goal scorers to roll past Lumberton High School on Tuesday.
Squaring off against its second Sandhills Athletic Conference opponent in as many nights, multi-goal games by junior Carley Lambeth and senior Morgan Hooks helped the Lady Raiders to a 5-2 victory.
On her birthday, Lambeth scored two goals, the second and third of her season, while Hooks followed up a goal in Monday’s win over Hoke County High School with two more against the Lady Pirates. Sophomore Jayla McDougald, a recent junior varsity call-up, netted her first career varsity goal to round out the scoring.
“Tonight’s game was very similar to last night,” head coach Chris Larsen commented. “I thought we knocked the ball around really well the first 20 or 30 minutes, and were able to create space when we had possession.
“The girls had plenty of scoring opportunities tonight,” he continued. “Once we scored we were able to ride that momentum and keep scoring. The last 10 minutes of the first half we slacked off, but got back in the swing of things in second.”
Richmond would score two of its goals in the opening 40 minutes, and take a 2-1 lead into halftime. In the final half, three more Lady Raider goals secured the win.
Lambeth got the scoring started in the third minute to give Richmond a 1-0 lead. She followed up with her second goal of the night in the 18th minute, a shot ripped from from outside the box, to give the visiting team a 2-0 advantage.
Lumberton’s Sherry Lay cut her team’s deficit in half when she beat sophomore goalkeeper Kelly Hoffman in the closing minutes of the first half.
Hooks, who has seen her scoring shot come to life the past handful of games, netted her second and third goals of the season in the second half. She scored the game-winning goal in Monday’s win over Hoke County, and was responsible for the same thing against Lumberton.
She helped give Richmond a 3-1 lead in the opening minutes of the second half, and notched her second goal of the night, a rocket from outside the 18-yard box, in the 59th minute.
McDougald would get some help from senior midfielder Chloe Wiggins on her goal, as Wiggins used her trademark cross to send a ball on frame, which McDougald used her head to knock in Richmond’s final goal of the night and give her team a four-goal lead.
Hilary Oliver managed to get a shot past Hoffman to give Lumberton (3-4, 1-4 SAC) another goal, but it was too little, too late.
“Overall, I thought we played really well tonight,” Larsen said. “It was nice to see Carley get her first two goals of the season, and Morgan add two more after scoring last night. Jayla’s header was a good first goal for her.
“Now we’ve got two days of practice to get ready for Seventy-First on Friday,” he concluded. “Hopefully we can end the week on a high note with three quality conference wins.”
Richmond (5-2, 4-1 SAC) will travel to the Lady Falcons (3-3, 0-3 SAC) on Friday for a varsity-only game, beginning at 6 p.m.
Note: The Richmond junior varsity soccer team also defeated Lumberton Tuesday, by a final score of 2-0. It was the team’s second-straight shutout, as Talayeh Covington and Paxlee Faircloth found the back of the net. Both scored against Hoke County, and Faircloth’s goal Tuesday came on a penalty kick. Tad Hamilton’s team improved to 5-0 on the season.
