ROCKINGHAM – It’d had been an entire week since the Richmond Senior High School varsity soccer team had played a game due to weather, but the weeklong hiatus didn’t seem to have an impact on the Raiders, as they celebrated senior night on Monday with a big Sandhills Athletic Conference win over visiting Seventy-First High School.
After surprising second-place Hoke County High School with a penalty-kick victory on the road last week, the Raiders (7-8, 5-4 SAC) unleashed a scoring fury on the Falcons (5-10, 2-8 SAC), winning 9-0 in mercy rule fashion. It was Richmond’s largest margin of victory this season, the previous being an 8-0 win over Purnell Swett High School on Aug. 27. The last time the Raiders won via a mercy rule was against the Rams last season on Aug. 28, 2017.
The back-to-back wins come after the Raiders fell in their previous three matches, and with the win, first-year head coach Chris Larsen’s team hopes to make a late push in the conference standings to qualify for the state playoffs. More so, it was the scoring outburst that Richmond needed to get things moving in the right direction after averaging just 1.8 goals per match this season.
Ahead of the match, Richmond’s eight senior players were recognized in front of a sizeable crowd, escorted by parents and family members. This year’s seniors are: Carlos Alcocer, Nolan Allen, Evyn Brower, Alexis Gonzalez, Kyle Goodwin, Jackson Haley and Evan Hudson.
“This group of seniors has been a really great group of guys,” Larsen commented on his seniors after the game. “I’ve coached all of them in some shape or form the past couple of years, and it’s been a fun group. I’m glad I got the opportunity to coach them and see a lot of them get the opportunity to score tonight, which is always enjoyable.
“I told the guys I was disappointed that we didn’t get to play last week after our big win against Hoke,” he added. “Having three games this week, I told them we needed to jump out early tonight and get the ball rolling in our favor. Hopefully tonight’s match is a confidence builder going into the last five matches of the regular season.”
The Raiders heard their coach and came out of the gates hot, netting two goals in the first 1:25, and collected seven first-half goals. It was two seniors, Gonzalez and Alcocer, who ripped the ball into the twine in the opening minute and a half, scoring their fourth and fifth goals, respectively, of the season.
Both goals were set up and assisted by junior Noah Jordan, as Gonzalez collected an outlet pass from Jordan on a three-on-one rush just 48 seconds into the game, blasting a shot past Komla Akogo for the eventual game-winner. Not long after, Alcocer took a similar pass from Jordan inside the 18-yard box on another odd-man rush, and mirrored Gonzalez’s goal to put the Raiders up 2-0.
Richmond drilled the ball toward the net a couple of more times in the opening 10 minutes of play, with near-misses coming from Alcocer and Jordan, and on a corner kick by Allen. Richmond’s keeper, Haley, didn’t have to make many plays on the night, but he made a punching save in the 12th minute to keep the Falcons off the board.
The Raiders’ next two goals would come just four minutes apart in the middle of the first half, this time by a tandem of juniors. Luke Hawks made it 3-0 in the 19th minute when he took a long volley from Gonzalez over the top and down the middle of the field, beating Akogo one-on-one from inside the six-yard box for his team-leading sixth goal of the season. Jordan added to his two assists with his first of his team-high two goals on the night in the 23rd minute, taking a lead pass from Gonzalez around Akogo and into a wide-open net.
Following a foul committed by Seventy-First’s Lansee Conde around the 26th minute-mark, Alcocer took an indirect kick just outside the 18-yard box that was blocked in front of the net. On the same sequence, junior Lee Hayden booted the ball into the back of the net, but had his score negated after being whistled for offsides.
Senior Alexis Gonzalez (left) and junior Noah Jordan (right) combined for three goals in Monday’s 9-0 win.
Maintaining a four-goal lead and approaching the final minutes of the opening 40 minutes, Jordan played deja vu and toe-tapped his second goal into the net on another odd-man rush with 3:40 remaining, his third of the year. The final two scores before the whistle were scored by Hudson and an own-goal by the Falcons’ defense. Hudson, who normally plays center back, played a through ball from Jordan and made quick work by putting the ball to the far post against a diving Akogo.
On the own-goal, Hayden was the last Raider to touch the ball, as he ripped a shot from 12 yards out, seeing it hit Edward Alexander’s leg and deflect past his keeper with just 10 seconds on the clock. At the buzzer, Richmond held a healthy 7-0 lead and needed only two more goals to end the night early.
The first of those two goals came just eight minutes into the second half when Goodwin roped his first goal of the season from the right side of the box in the 48th minute. Haley surprised the crowd when he jogged onto the field not into the goal, but to the top of the scoring line after being replaced by sophomore Kaden Walker. Better yet, Haley nearly ended the game when a header attempt sailed just over the crossbar minutes after Goodwin’s score.
Raider fans got to pack up early when junior Steven Morales scored the mercy-rule goal with 13:08 left on the clock, charging in on a loose ball in front of the net and using his upper body to send it past backup keeper Zakion Dillard.
“The biggest thing with my group of seniors is that everything I’ve ever asked them to do, whether it was on junior varsity or this year, they’ve done it,” Larsen said. “A lot of times you’ll have guys that buck and won’t do what you want them to do. But these guys never gave me a problem, and that’s what will stick with me. Even when the tide wasn’t going our way, they held true and that’s brought us to where we are today.”
Since Hurricanes Florence and Michael have sent the fall soccer schedule for a loop, the Raiders still have five games to go before the NCHSAA 4A playoffs begin. The SAC will not have a conference tournament this year, so if Richmond hopes to make a run into the playoffs, winning the remaining games is a must. And Larsen believes his team can do it.
“If we take care of our business and win as many games as we can, we’ll be able to squeeze in,” he explained. “But the other teams aren’t going to give us wins, so we still have to play — but each win will better our chances of making the playoffs.
Currently, Richmond sits in fourth place in the SAC standings, and Larsen said the goal for the Raiders is to finish in the top three to make it to the playoffs. Richmond will return to play Tuesday at Seventy-First (6 p.m.), before travelling to last-place Scotland High School (3-10, 1-7 SAC) on Wednesday (7 p.m.).
