WADESBORO — An early deficit on the road quickly turned into a 40-point win for the Richmond Senior High School girls’ basketball team on Thursday.
Facing off against Anson High School for the second time in three nights, the Lady Raiders used four double-digit scorers to rout the Lady Bearcats 68-28. Senior guard Keionna Love, who entered the game off the bench in the second half, netted a game-high 17 points.
Not far behind her was junior point guard Jayla McDougald, who followed her career high performance from Tuesday (20 points) with 16 points on Thursday. Also reaching double figures were junior Jakerra Covington (12 points) and sophomore Jamiya Ratliff (10 points), both season-highs.
The 40-point rout was the largest margin of victory in second-year head coach Teddy Moseley’s tenure.
“We made some adjustments tonight, and so did Anson,” Moseley commented. “But we’ve got to stop turning the ball over — we had too many unforced turnovers again. But when we got into our sets, we were able to run and get baskets.
“Keionna was a big spark for us off the bench, and she’ll be back in the starting lineup,” he added. “But I was most impressed with Kyla Sampson. She had a solid game, and Jayla and Jakerra joined in. It was an overall solid effort.”
Sampson, a freshman, finished the night with six points, all coming on three-pointers.
Anson got out to an early 3-0 lead thanks to a free throw from Revie Byars and a bucket from Kimberly Smith. Richmond was slow to find the basket, but Sampson hit a game-tying triple from the right wing with 3:35 to go in the opening quarter, which sparked a 12-0 run the end the frame.
Covington recorded five of her points in the first, and McDougald chipped in three points.
McDougald would lead all scorers in the second quarter, tallying eight points on a three-pointer, two floaters in transition and a free throw. Ratliff showed her range and hit a triple to add three more points to her scoresheet.
Richmond (2-0) outscored Anson 14-8 in the second stanza to take a 26-11 lead into the break.
The Lady Raiders led by as many as 21 points in the third quarter, coming when Sampson hit her final three of the game. McDougald chipped in a team-high five points, and Love found her first four points of the game on a pair of drives in the paint.
Taking over in the fourth was Love, whose 13 points nearly doubled all of Anson’s scoring. Ratliff contributed six points, while junior Davionna Campbell notched all four of her points in the final two minutes of regulation.
For the second straight game, Byars led the Lady Bearcats (0-2) in scoring, posting 14 points in the loss. Teammate Tharianna Medley scored five points.
“Confidence is the key to keeping the girls scoring (in double figures),” Moseley said. “Our defense wasn’t as good as it was on Tuesday. There was too much ball watching. Scoring won’t always be consistent, but our defense needs to be.
“Now we’re going to take the week (between games) and practice on not allowing turnovers and working from the free throw line,” he closed. “We went 15-for-34 tonight and that’s not good enough.”
The Lady Raiders will take the week off from games for the Thanksgiving holiday and will return to action on Tuesday, Dec. 3, at home against Southern Lee High School (1-1). Tipoff is expected to start at 6:30 p.m.
