SANFORD — Ending its regular season on the road Saturday, the Richmond Raider soccer team lost to Sandhills Athletic Conference champion Lee County High School.
The final of three games this week, the Raiders were mercy-ruled 9-0. Lee County’s final goal came with 5:13 remaining in the second half.
Scoring four goals in the first half, Lee County (14-3-2, 10-0-2 SAC) added five more in the second half to clinch the 3A/4A conference title.
Thomas Perry scored both of his goals in the first half (9th and 20th minutes), Logan Jordan added the first of his two goals in the 24th minute and Elias Alavarez scored in the 31st minute.
Adding goals in the second stanza were Jordan (57th minute), Hugo Guevara (64th minute), Irvin Gutierrez (68th minute), Jonathan Fuentez (70th minute) and Gian Lopez (75th minute).
Richmond head coach Chris Larsen said it wasn’t the outcome the Raiders wanted to end the regular season, but added it was a good opportunity to let several underclassmen and returners for next year get valuable playing time.
He also said he hopes the team uses the match as preparation heading into the SAC tournament next week.
The Raiders used all three of their goalkeepers against the Yellow Jackets. Junior Ethan McDonald started and made several saves in the first half before a collision in the box sidelined him the rest of the game.
Freshman Adrian Padron made his varsity debut and played the final 10 minutes of the first half and roughly 20 minutes of the second half. Capping the goalkeeping efforts was senior Ian Williams.
Senior midfielder Alex Medina had two shots on net in the first half, one from the left side and the other on a corner. Junior Ayden Mabe sent a shot over the crossbar midway through the final 40 minutes, and sophomore James Eason and senior Justin McDougald made runs on goal late in the match.
Richmond (4-13-1, 2-9-1 SAC) will open the first round of the SAC tournament on Monday. As the No. 6 seed, the Raiders will travel to No. 3 Southern Lee High School (10-6-1, 7-4-1 SAC), with play beginning at 6 p.m.
