ROCKINGHAM – When the Richmond Senior High School varsity soccer team plays rival Pinecrest High School, it’s sure to be a competitive match. And in the regular season series finale between the Raiders and the Patriots, it took a two-man advantage by the visiting Patriots to knock off a fiesty Raider team.
In Monday’s Sandhills Athletic Conference match at RSHS, Pinecrest would score two unanswered goals in the final 6:35, both with an advantage, to escape the Raiders by a final score of 4-2. With the loss, Richmond is now 5-6 on the season and is 3-3 in SAC play.
What has become a physical rivalry between the neighboring county schools, Monday’s game brought the heat, as several players from both teams received yellow cards. What ultimately cost the Raiders were red cards by seniors Jose Fonseca (language following a yellow card) and Carlos Alcocer (second yellow card which equals a disqualification from the match).
But all things considered, first-year head coach Chris Larsen was pleased with his team’s effort against the SAC-leading Patriots (11-1, 7-0 SAC).
“I told the guys that Pinecrest had to take two of us out to dominate play” Larsen noted after the game. “We were playing two men down and we could have sat back, but they didn’t and they finished the game hard. I take the blame for the last goal, but we left it all out there tonight and that’s what I like to see.”
Both teams scored a goal in the first half, and would end the opening 40 minutes of play tied at one. Pinecrest got on the board first in the 22nd minute with a penalty kick following a Fonseca foul in the box when he upended Pinecrest’s Cameron Richter. Just 10 minutes later, Richmond’s Noah Jordan would knot the game in the 32nd minute with a left-footed blast from the right side that streaked past Patriot goalkeeper Hunter Johnson into the upper far-post corner.
Out of the break, it was the visiting team that took a 2-1 lead on another penalty kick in the 50th minute. This time, Richmond goalkeeper Jackson Haley was whistled for a foul in the box while attempting to make a secondary save, which led to Pinecrest’s Jasper Ardinger beating Haley to his left on the penalty kick.
The Raiders answered right back when it was awarded a free kick at the top of the 18-yard box following a foul committed by Judas Villegas, which resulted in a yellow card for the junior forward. Alcocer took the free kick and bent the ball around a wall of Patriots, as it struck the twine in the upper right corner of the net past Johnson who didn’t have time to react. With 24:28 left in regulation, the game was tied at two.
“I was trying to tell Carlos to hold the ball and set something else up,” Larsen said. “But I always tell them that if they feel like they can put it in, then go ahead and take the shot. He was able to bend it around and squeeze it in the near post — and that’s what you want when you get a free kick at the top of the box.”
Richmond dominated control of the ball for the better part of the second half before it found itself in foul trouble. Jordan nicked a header wide of the goal mouth just prior to Alcocer’s goal, and junior Luke Hawks smashed a shot on frame from five yards out that was batted away by Johnson in the 59th minute.
Jordan also made a run on net a couple of minutes later, and chipped the ball over Johnson’s head on a one-on-one opportunity, but the officials flagged him for being offsides.
Fonseca’s red card came in the 71st minute, which put Richmond down a man for the first time this season. Following a couple of nice saves by Haley, sophomore forward Nick Vences corralled a bouncing ball in front of the net and his shot in front was deflected past Haley in the 74th minute for the eventual game-winner.
Less than 30 seconds later, Alcocer picked up his disqualification and gave Pincrest the two-man advantage. Ardinger would score his second goal of the night in the 79th minute on a Haley rebound to seal the deal late for the Patriots.
“In a big game situation, Jackson has been stepping up for us all season,” Larsen said of his keeper. “The first two goals they scored were penalty kicks, and the third goal was really the only one that was a quality goal. It got deflected in front and made its way into the net.
“Tonight goes to show that we can play with anyone we want to,” he added. “The guys decided they wanted to play team ball and they knocked it around and we hung with them. We worked hard for 70 of the 80 minutes tonight, and it wasn’t until we were down a man and then two that it got away from us.”
The Raiders will take Tuesday off before returning to play Wednesday on the road at SAC opponent Jack Britt High School (4-5, 1-3 SAC). The match is set to begin at 7 p.m. as Richmond looks to take the season series sweep against the Buccaneers.
