ROCKINGHAM — As the 2018-19 academic and athletic school year officially drew to a close with Saturday’s Richmond Senior High School graduation, ROSports will begin its second “Top 10 Sports Stories of the Year” countdown.
Richmond’s athletics department had a successful year in nearly 20 different programs. The Richmond Observer will release its top 10 sports stories one at a time, counting down from 10 to one. Each story will contain a brief synopsis of events, and include the original publication for readers’ enjoyment.
In a year that saw Richmond take part in its second season of the Sandhills Athletic Conference, the varsity football team won its first conference championship in eight years under second-year head coach Bryan Till. The Raiders took down the Scotland High School Fighting Scots for the first time during that drought, and forged ahead to a third-round appearance in the NCHSAA state playoffs.
The Lady Raider softball team joined the football squad with an SAC title of its own, the seventh-straight championship for head coach Wendy Wallace and company. The softball program also won the SAC tournament title before making it to the third round of the playoffs.
The varsity baseball, volleyball, boys’ basketball, boys’ soccer and girls’ soccer programs all qualified for the 4A state playoffs as well. Representatives of the girls’ and boys’ golf teams, girls’ and boys’ tennis teams, girls’ and boys’ track and field teams and girls’ and boys’ swimming and bowling teams all made appearances in either the regional or state championships in their respective sport.
The past school year was also filled with exciting moments on and off the playing surface for Richmond’s student-athletes, as multiple athletes signed letters of intent to continue their careers at the collegiate level.
That included seeing over a half dozen football players sign, four baseball players, three softball players, three soccer players, two basketball players and a tennis player, among others.
Also, three new head coaches were announced by athletic director Ricky Young last spring, seeing Ashleigh Larsen (volleyball), Chris Larsen (soccer) and Teddy Moseley (girls’ basketball) take the lead of their programs this year.
The ROSports department has analyzed each program’s individual season, and has chosen its top stories based on the prominence of each game/match in terms of importance to the season’s outcome, player performance and overall excitement and intensity. The No. 10 story will be published in the Monday, June 10 edition.
