ROCKINGHAM – The first full week of November is a time of transition for Richmond Senior High School student athletes, as the majority of the fall sports teams are finished and the winter sports teams are heating things up.
Save for the Raider football program, every fall sport has concluded its 2018 season. The Richmond boys soccer team saw its season come to an end Friday at Ardrey Kell High School in the opening round of the playoffs, falling 4-0. First-year head coach Chris Larsen explained that the All-Sandhills Athletic Conference team will be announced when the remaining SAC teams are eliminated (or win) the 4A state playoffs.
Because of a two-week pause in action from Hurricane Florence in September, the fall and winter sports seasons are sharing a bit of an overlap. The varsity and junior varsity football programs are in their final week of the regular season, with Bryan Till’s varsity squad looking to close out an undefeated SAC schedule Friday at Purnell Swett High School (7:30 p.m.).
The junior varsity team, coached by Patrick Hope, has a jammed pack week with a makeup game Monday against Seventy-First High School, and will close out its season against Purnell Swett on Thursday. Both games are scheduled for a 6:30 p.m. start, with Hope’s Raiders looking to finish a perfect 10-0 for the second consecutive year.
Monday also marks the unofficial start of the Richmond girls basketball season, as first-year head coach Teddy Moseley’s varsity squad will host Uwharrie Charter Academy in a scrimmage at RSHS. The junior varsity team, led by first-year head coach Mitch Coe, will start the scrimmaging at 5:30 p.m., with the varsity team to follow.
Tryouts for the boys and girls basketball teams were held last week, and boys’ head coach Donald Pettigrew is preparing to begin his second season at the helm of the program. The Raiders’ first scrimmage of the season will be held on Saturday, Nov. 10, at Southern Lee High School in Sanford. The girls will scrimmage the same day at Terry Sanford High School, with times yet to be announced for both scrimmages.
This winter will also mark the start of the second career seasons for the boys and girls bowling and swimming programs at Richmond. Last year, the Sandhills Athletic Conference added the two sports to the docket, and the Raider and Lady Raider teams in both sports saw first-year successes. Tryouts will be held for both teams starting Monday, with Mike Way entering his second year as the swimming head coach, and Ralph Butler serving as the bowling program’s new head coach (replacing Jeff Ingram).
The final winter sport is the wrestling program, headed by longtime veteran coach Earl Nicholson. The Raider wrestling team has been holding workouts the past couple of weeks, and will see its first match of the season be held on Saturday, Nov. 17, in Richmond’s gymnasium (7 a.m.). Also announced in the past two weeks was the beginning of middle school wrestling in Richmond County, as the four area middle schools will combine to make one county team and compete against teams from neighboring counties.
ROSports will publish season previews for all RSHS winter sports programs in the coming weeks, as well as a Richmond soccer and football season recap and All-SAC team features when the teams are made public.
