SOUTHERN PINES — The Richmond Senior High School volleyball team wasn’t able to keep its perfect conference record intact Thursday.
Playing its second Sandhills Athletic Conference opponent this week, Richmond lost 3-0 on the road at Pinecrest High School.
The Lady Raiders fell by set scores of 15-25, 14-25 and 20-25.
Head coach Ashleigh Larsen said the Lady Raiders started each set strongly, but wasn’t able to close the door on the Lady Patriots (4-4, 1-0 SAC).
During the second set, Pinecrest rallied off 13 straight points to eliminate a two-point lead by Richmond and take a 2-0 advantage.
“We hung with them for the first half of each game,” Larsen said. “Through the first 12 or 15 points the girls played together. But then they made some mental errors and they started crumbling after that.
“I thought we made good adjustments when we could. We just didn’t stay consistent with those adjustments.
“We were leading pretty well in the third set but let (Pinecrest) come back and win,” she added. “We’ve just got to find that drive to finish out games once we’ve got a lead.”
Richmond (5-3, 1-1 SAC) has two upcoming home conference matches next week, starting with Hoke County (5-1, 0-1 SAC) Tuesday at 6 p.m.
JV Lady Raiders force third set
Forcing a decisive third set Thursday, the Richmond junior varsity volleyball team came up a couple points short.
Falling 2-1 to Pinecrest, set scores were 20-25, 25-19 and 12-15.
“Today’s game was definitely all about momentum,” head coach Melissa Dennis said. “I couldn’t be more proud of the way they stuck together through some tough serve-receives and good net play from Pinecrest.
“We were moving our feet to get every ball and making smart plays at the net. We need to work on our communication going further.”
The JV Lady Raiders (4-3, 1-1 SAC) play at home Tuesday against Hoke County at 5 p.m.
Sports editor’s note: Ashleigh Larsen, Melissa Dennis and Jonathan Bym contributed to this article.
