ROCKINGHAM – All it took was the Richmond Senior High School varsity basketball team to “stop doing the things that were working” for it to dig a big late-game deficit against the visiting Sandhills Athletic Conference leading Hoke County High School Bucks Tuesday night.
Those were the words of Richmond head coach Donald Pettigrew and those mistakes cost the Raiders a potential upset as they fell 73-59 at home.
A game-high scoring performance of 23 points from senior Dakari Johnson kept the Bucks (18-1. 10-0 SAC) atop the conference standings. Richmond (7-13, 3-7 SAC) was led by its M-and-M combo, as senior Malik Flowers and junior Malik Stanback netted 13 points each for the second game in a row.
“We play in a tough conference,” Pettigrew said following the game. “We had some lapses at the end of the first quarter when we tried to trap Johnson and he just split us. I told the guys we couldn’t afford to get him on like that. He’s special.”
The Raiders were in the game early, as they led at the end of the first quarter 17-16. The opening eight minutes were back-and-forth, as the two teams traded the lead six times and were tied twice.
Flowers and Stanback got their shots falling early, as they combined to score the Raiders’ first nine points to jump out to a 9-6 lead in the first five minutes of play. But Johnson’s own eight points in the quarter, along with help from senior teammate Jaleel Ray, kept the Bucks within range. Johnson ended the quarter with a buzzer-beating triple (one of his game-high five) over two Richmond defenders off a screen.
Senior point guard Darrius Butler helped give the Raiders their largest lead of the night (four points), as he opened the second quarter scoring the first three points for Richmond. But that 20-16 lead was flipped by an 8-0 Bucks run in 37 seconds that saw Johnson add another triple and a long-range jumper. Now trailing 26-21 with 4:09 to go before the break, Pettigrew called a timeout.
However, head coach Quame Patterson’s team kept its foot on the gas, and entered the locker room up 35-27. And at that point, the game was very much still in reach for Pettigrew and the Raiders.
The Bucks’ eight-point halftime lead was quickly pushed to 12 mid-way through the third quarter. Johnson hit another three-pointer, and got help from four of his teammates. Trailing 46-34, junior guard Roderick Newton hushed a rowdy Hoke crowd as he drained the first of his three three-pointers.
A 6-0 Hoke County burst in the quarter’s final 42 seconds extended the lead to a then game-high 14 points, 53-39.
Richmond would have its best shooting quarter of the night in the final stanza, as it netted 20 points on six total field goals, including three from downtown (Newton had two, junior Mycah Wilson had one), coupled with a handful of free throws. But Johnson and company matched it with 20 of their own, as clutch free throws down the stretch sealed the deal.
Senior Silas Love tacked on six from the charity stripe in the final quarter to lead the Bucks, while senior Jalen Love and Johnson chipped in five points apiece. But the Raiders wouldn’t go away quietly.
Newton opened the quarter with a three-pointer from the top of the arc, and added another to ignite a 6-0 Richmond run in the middle of the frame. Stanback, Butler and senior Da’Shaun Wallace all added one field goal each, and sophomore center Jarvis Tillman drained three free throws.
However, a Silas Love free throw with 57.8 seconds left in regulation would push the lead to a game-high 19 points and serve as the final Bucks points of the night.
“We had a couple of looks, and then we just stopped (hitting shots),” Pettigrew said. “I tell the guys we have to continue to do what’s working for us. We started playing a lot of one-on-one ball, and missed layups and didn’t finish drives. And that hurt us.
“That’s the difference – we have to knock down shots,” he added.
To add to Flowers’ and Stanback’s 26 combined points, Newton ended the night with nine, all coming from three-point range in the second half. Butler and Wallace had six points each, while Tillman contributed five points.
Silas Love and freshman Jaquantae Harris matched Richmond’s top scorers, as they aided Johnson’s 23 points with 13 of their own. Ray tacked on nine points by game’s end.
Richmond will be back in action Wednesday night, as they’ll make up a snow day game against Lumberton High School (9-11, 4-6 SAC). The Pirates lost to Hoke 81-77 on January 19, and Pettigrew is expecting a tough matchup, but expects his team to play well. Tipoff is set for 7:30 p.m.
