ROCKINGHAM — Making its first appearance in the “Top 10 Sports Stories” countdown of the 2019-2020 school year is the Richmond Raider basketball team.
Bouncing its way into the No. 8 spot, the boys’ basketball team overcame two regular-season losses to eventual state title contender and Sandhills Athletic Conference foe Lumberton High School to punch its ticket in the countdown.
Head coach Donald Pettigrew and the Raiders were all about maintaining a “gold status” this past winter, and that mantra was most noticeable when Richmond battled the Pirates for the third time during this past season.
Lumberton would eventually go on a run through the NCHSAA 4A state playoffs and reach the championship game, but never played due to the coronavirus outbreak. In the previous two meetings, the Pirates routed Richmond by 30 and 29 points, respectively.
But all of that changed in Lumberton on Feb. 23 during the semifinal round of the SAC tournament. Entering the game as the No. 3 seed and the underdog, the Raiders would avenge those earlier losses when it mattered most.
Playing the No. 2 Pirates on the road, Richmond used a career night from senior shooting guard Quamir Sivels. Plagued by a lingering injury for most of his senior campaign, Sivels came up big for the Raiders by dropping a career-high 26 points in a 67-54 win.
Junior wing Caleb Hood contributed a double-double in the win, posting 21 points and adding 14 rebounds. The win not only notched Richmond’s 19th win of the season, but it also sent the Raiders to the SAC tournament title game for the second consecutive season.
Although Richmond would fall to Pinecrest High School in the championship bout, the return to the big dance showed the promise of Pettigrew returning the Raiders to a high-caliber program.
In the 2018-2019 season, Richmond fell just shy to Seventy-First High School in the tournament finale.
Richmond finished the season 20-9, the first 20-win season since 2016. Earning a third-place finish in the SAC standings, the Raiders posted a 9-5 mark against SAC opponents, while also advancing to the second round of the state playoffs for the second year in a row.
Below is the link to the original upset win game story, written by sports editor Kyle Pillar for the Feb. 20, 2019, edition of the Richmond Observer:
