SOUTHERN PINES – Richmond Senior High School’s varsity basketball team’s 49-38 loss to rival Sandhills Athletic Conference opponent Pinecrest High School Thursday night fit the season narrative the Raiders have written.
Still in transition and finding its way under first-year head coach Donald Pettigrew, Richmond has been competitive in every game this season. But as Pettigrew will confirm, in games that Richmond hasn’t won, it’s because there’s an offensive or defensive lapse in which its players run out of gas and allow opponents to take control.
And Thursday night happened to be one of those games.
“For two or three minutes in the fourth quarter, we just didn’t score,” Pettigrew said. “We’ve talked about it all season. We had a good game except for those couple of minutes. We have to be able to hit our shots and take opportunities.”
Richmond (5-12, 1-7 SAC) put up its second lowest total score of the season in a game that was tightly contested through the first three quarter. But a roughly three-minute span in the fourth quarter was all the Patriots (14-3, 5-2 SAC) needed to seal the deal late.
In a low-scoring affair, the Raiders got the night’s scoring started when junior guard Alex Quick took a dish under the hoop from teammate Malik Stanback and laid it in. Both teams traded three-pointers as Pinecrest’s Richard Johnson and Richmond’s Roderick Newton hit from downtown.
Richmond would finish the opening frame in impressive fashion, managing to put up a 9-0 run in the final 1:25. Junior guard Bobby Terry, who contributed seven points in that run, hit a jumper in the lane to initiate the rush. Terry would follow up with a three-pointer from the left wing with 46 seconds remaining in the quarter, as well as a floater through the paint as the buzzer sounded to end the first.
Leading 15-11 at the start of the second quarter, Richmond added three points when senior forward Malik Flowers hit a field goal from beyond the arc in the left corner. But the Patriots, who are currently third in the SAC, answered when Kenston Gillespie hit a triple and was fouled in the process. He hit the subsequent free throw, cutting Richmond’s lead to one, 18-17.
Richmond sophomore center Jarvis Tillman delivered a big block with 3:52 left before the half, which resulted in freshman guard Caleb Hood dishing the ball to Stanback for an easy two. But Pinecrest’s Clayton Coe would connect on an old-fashion three-point play to tie the game at 20, the first tie since it was 5-5 in opening quarter.
With 32 seconds to go, Coe hit a layup to give the Patriots a 22-20 halftime lead, having outscored the Raiders 11-5 in the quarter.
Richmond impressed the home crowd by playing tight defense and attacking the rim throughout the first half. And its players carried that style of play over into the third stanza, as it sparked an 8-0 run in the final 3:58 of play.
Newton connected on a drive through traffic, and got help from senior teammate Kaleb Douglas when he drove hard through the lane for his only bucket of the night at the 1:56 mark following a Da’Shaun Wallace steal. Newton found fire in the last 90 seconds of the quarter, as he collected a steal for a layup and hit a tough three-pointer from the right corner with under 15 seconds remaining.
Down just two points entering the fourth quarter, 33-31, Richmond was on the heels of avenging a 64-51 loss on December 8. But the lapse that Pettigrew noted occurred early in the fourth, as the Raiders’ defense went flat and allowed Pinecrest to jump ahead by 10 points, 42-32.
Richmond senior Carl McNeal splashed a three-pointer from the left corner at the 3:46 mark, but that would prove to start a Raiders’ scoring drought that lasted 3:14, in which Pinecrest increased its lead to 46-35.
McNeal ended the stretch by hitting a free throw, but Richmond never recovered. The Patriots, which forced Richmond to foul, hit seven foul shots in the game’s closing minutes to ice the victory.
“Concentration – that’s what we have to do down the stretch,” Pettigrew said of what his team needs to do to get its first win of 2018. “We’ve got to finish. Defensively, we made it hard for them to score. And we have to do a better job rebounding.”
The Raiders were without post-player Xavier Pettigrew, as he continues to nurse a re-aggravated sprained MCL injury. His status for the rest of the season is doubtful, according to Richmond’s head coach.
Pinecrest senior forward Tyrell Allmond finished the night leading all scorers with 15 points. Newton was the only Raider in double digits, as he netted 10 points. Terry finished with seven, and Flowers and Stanback both chipped in five.
The Raiders will play the second of three consecutive nights Friday, as they’ll host Jack Britt High School (6-10, 1-6). Richmond lost to the Buccaneers 49-37 on their home court on December 12. Tipoff is set for 7:30 p.m.
