ROCKINGHAM — Fresh off a third-place finish at the Beach Diamond Invitational at West Brunswick High School over spring break, the Richmond Senior High School baseball team has its sights set high for the Sandhills Athletic Conference tournament.
Set to begin Tuesday, the No. 2 Raiders will host No. 7 Lumberton High School. With the regular-season schedule now in the books, the Raiders (17-7, 11-3 SAC) and head coach Ricky Young are preparing for a run through tournament play to help their seeding in the state playoffs.
The Raiders overcame a rough three-game losing streak to end SAC play with a solid performance at the Beach Diamond Invitational, redeeming themselves with a 10-2 win over rival Scotland High School in the third-place game.
In the opening round, Richmond held off Morehead High School 4-1, before falling to host West Brunswick 1-0 in the second game of the winner’s bracket. The victory over Scotland, which is ranked as the No. 4 team in the SAC standings, helped the Raiders wipe away two losses to the Fighting Scots to close out regular-season SAC play.
With the top two conference teams guaranteed to make the state playoffs, that being No. 1 Pinecrest High School (18-4, 12-2 SAC) and Richmond, this week’s SAC tournament could potentially help the Raiders in their playoff seeding.
As of the most recent rankings, the Raiders are ranked as the No. 18 team in 4A play according to the North Carolina High School Athletic Association’s adjusted Maxpreps rankings.
“We are going to treat the (conference) tournament like we have all of our games this year,” Young said. “We’re going to play one game at a time and not look ahead to the next one.”
No. 2 Richmond will start Tuesday at home against the No. 7 Pirates (5-15, 3-11 SAC). During the regular season, the Raiders swept Lumberton on April 3 and 4, using a pair of complete-game shutouts by seniors Cameron Carraway and Hunter Parris to blank the Pirates.
If the Raiders were to win Tuesday, they’d return to action against the winner between No. 3 Jack Britt (11-5, 9-5 SAC) and No. 6 Hoke County (7-13, 4-10 SAC) high schools. Richmond also swept both of those teams during the regular season, which was a part of a season-long 11-game winning streak.
The championship game will be played Friday at the highest remaining seed’s ballpark. Richmond last won the SAC tournament in 2015, defeating Purnell Swett 4-3 in eight innings.
During last season’s SAC tournament, the No. 3 Raiders fell to No. 6 Purnell Swett High School 4-3 in 10 innings. The early exit gave Richmond a No. 15 seed in the west bracket of the playoffs, and the Raiders went on to defeat No. 18 Davie County High School before falling to No. 2 East Forsyth in the second round.
Opening pitch against the Pirates is set for 7 p.m. on Tuesday in Rockingham.
