ROCKINGHAM – The Richmond Senior High School varsity volleyball team is two matches into its Hurricane Florence return, but it is still searching for its first win since before the storm.
Back in action for the second night in a row, and playing their second of four matches this week, the Lady Raiders went quietly in three sets to non-conference opponent Lee County High School Wednesday night. The night before, Richmond battled rival Pinecrest High School in a drawn out five-set match, but faltered late.
Set scores against the Lady Yellow Jackets were 20-25, 19-25 and 19-25.
With the back-to-back losses, head coach Ashleigh Larsen’s team falls to 7-5 overall on the season. Larsen noted her team didn’t play that poorly, it was just a matter that it couldn’t muster enough firepower to win.
“It’s like we’re right there and we’re close to where we need to be, but we get in a hole and aren’t able to shake it off,” Larsen said following the match.
“I told the girls they’ve got to find some kind of drive within themselves if they want to turn things around,” she added. “I can tell them things at practice or during timeouts, but they need to find that fire that I know they have.”
Despite losing all three sets, the Lady Raiders never trailed by more than six points at any point during the entire match, and held a lead in the second and third sets. Lee County’s Kamryn Bivens and Elyria Hackney proved to be heavy hitters, which forced the Richmond back row to play on its heels all night — but several players answered the call.
“Carley (Lambeth) had a big night defensively, and Layne (Maultsby) had a huge night defensively digging out of the back row,” Larsen said of her setter and libero. “Tonight our entire defense was on fire, and the girls were where they needed to be on balls that weren’t tipped.”
The area of concern for Larsen is her team’s lack of offensive production, as Richmond only tallied 19 team kills during the match. Two players, Savannah Lampley and Georgia Grace Anderson, led the way with six kills apiece.
In the first set, Anderson went on a three-point solo run, which included two kills and a tip, to pull Richmond within one point, 10-9. A quick burst by Lee County (8-2) made it 18-12, forcing Larsen to call a timeout.
Out of the break, the Lady Raiders managed to force the pressure back on Lee County, as a 6-2 run made it 20-18 in favor of the visiting team. A Savannah Chappell kill late in the set wasn’t enough, as Lee County escaped 25-20.
The second and third sets both ended in scores of 25-19, with both teams trading points back and forth. A 5-0 run early in the second set by Lee County gave it the early edge, but the Lady Raiders charged back to tie things up at 13.
Junior Jadyn Johnson wowed the crowd with impressive digs on back-to-back attacks by Lee County, as her defense helped keep Richmond close. But a string of Richmond hitting errors down the stretch gave the visiting team its second straight set.
The only lead Richmond held in the third set was a 1-0 margin that came on a serving error by Lee County to open the frame. From that point on, Lee County maintained a small lead before a kill by Megan Collins started a 6-2 run to close out the match.
Johnson added five kills and five digs on the night, as Maultsby came through with a team-high 20 digs, and knocked two aces and a kill. Two other players reached double-digit digs, as Lambeth had 13 and Lampley had 10. Lambeth also added 19 assists on the night.
The Lady Raiders will travel to Sandhills Athletic Conference leader Jack Britt High School (11-6, 8-0 SAC) Thursday. The match is scheduled for a 6 p.m. start.
