ABERDEEN — An uncharacteristic performance by the Richmond Senior High School boys’ bowling team saw it drop its regular-season finale Thursday.
Returning to the Sandhills Bowling Center, the Raiders bowled a solo match against Scotland High School to close out their 15-match season.
Richmond suffered a 4-1 loss to the Fighting Scots and fell from third place to fourth place in the final Sandhills Athletic Conference standings.
Prior to Thursday’s match, the Raiders had won five of their previous six matches and were in third place.
“It’s always tough to face a team three different times in a season,” head coach Chris Larsen said. “Today we just didn’t have our best stuff and Scotland got the better of us in a couple of the games.”
Richmond’s lone victory came in the fourth game by a score of 190-170, but it was too late to complete the comeback.
Scotland took the first three games 131-127, 179-155 and 179-130 and added the extra point with a pin total of 659-602.
The Raiders averaged 150.5 pins per game and had a closing percentage of 54.5% (24-of-44), which were both well below their season averages.
Six bowlers competed for Richmond, as senior James Eason and junior Landon Summerlin split time at anchor. Both Raiders finished 7-for-10 (70%).
Summerlin was the team leader in strikes, rolling six of Richmond’s 14 total strikes. He added one spare to the scoresheet. Eason had three strikes to go along with four helpers.
Junior Jabari Douglas was right behind Eason and Summerlin with a .670 closing percentage. In his six frames, he closed four with two strikes and two spares. Sophomore Hayden Wheeler was also 4-for-6 with three strikes and one spare.
Sophomore Azariah Daniel (two spares) and junior Landon Taylor both contributed to the overall pin total.
“We are still in a good position going into the conference tournament,” Larsen closed. “We’ll fix a few things and give it our best shot and hope to upset the field a little bit.”
The boys’ SAC championship tournament will be held in Aberdeen Thursday, as team and individual tournaments will be held. Games will begin at 2 p.m.
