ROCKINGHAM - Day one of the official North Carolina High School Athletic Association’s fall sports schedule is in the books, and with it, three of Richmond Senior High School’s programs are calling day one a success.
Of the six fall sports programs at Richmond, the varsity and junior varsity football, boys soccer and volleyball teams took to their respective fields and courts Monday to begin tryouts and practices. The Raider football program doesn’t “necessarily do tryouts,” explained second-year head coach Bryan Till, but the soccer and volleyball teams wrapped up day one of tryouts.
Both the soccer and volleyball programs are under the leadership of first-year head coaches, as husband and wife duo Chris (soccer) and Ashleigh Larsen (volleyball) enter year one after each serving six years of coaching at the junior varsity level.
The other three programs (boys and girls cross country, girls golf and girls tennis) did not begin their seasons Monday for various reasons. Head tennis coach Mike Way had to postpone tryouts Monday morning due to the tennis courts being wet from overnight rain, so he bumped everything back a day, with tryouts now to be held Tuesday through Thursday mornings at 9 a.m.
Cross country, coached by Reggie Miller (boys) and Shellie Wimpey (girls) set its original schedule to start team tryouts on Wednesday and Thursday of this week. Both practices will begin at 7 p.m. The girls golf program, which was recently taken over by first-year head coach Keith Parsons in the last two weeks, still has a tryout date to be determined at the time of this publication.
Raider football is “right where we need to be” ahead of season opener
Defensive line coach Milton Swinnie works with players on Monday.
It won’t be long until the lights of Raider Stadium will illuminate the sky on Friday nights, as Richmond’s first home game and season opener is just 17 days away. Set for Friday, Aug. 17, against Ronald Reagan High School, the Raiders and Till started their preparation at 8 a.m. Monday.
“I thought it went really well today, especially with the cooler temps and we avoided the rain,” Till said. “I was so impressed by the way the guys flew around at high speeds and executed things so well on offense and defense. Our receivers were making good catches and our defense looked good, too.
“The guys worked so fast and took care of each other,” he added, noting that safety is a concern when making plays not in full pads. “They weren’t falling on top of each other or doing anything dumb, which is good for us.”
Sprawled out across the three practice fields on the back of RSHS’ campus, approximately 150 players participated in the first day of practice. Till noted that roughly 70 were varsity members, while the rest were evenly split between the junior varsity and freshman teams. While Till and his staff work on finalizing each positioning group’s final roster, several junior varsity players are intermixed with the varsity team during drills.
Players began practice in their individual positioning groups, as a small crowd was on hand to watch rising sophomore quarterback Caleb Hood and rising junior quarterback Noah Altman split reps with the first team offense. The varsity offensive and defensive lines worked with Kemp McSween and Milton Swinnie, respectively, focusing on stance and blocking drills.
Across the field, the receiving core worked on route running with assistant head coach Greg Williams and Andy Shuler, as running backs took reps under offensive coordinator Brad Denson. Till spent most of his morning working with the defense, as he and Chris Campolieta conditioned the linebackers and defensive backs.
Also on the turf was Chris Larsen and his three kickers, Drew Davis, Kyle Goodwin and Trevor Moss, as they spent time kicking field goals and punting the ball.
“We’re right on time and the team as a whole is right where we need to be,” Till explained. “Our coaches did a really good job and helped practice run smoothly. I’m really proud of our kids and our coaches after the first day of practice.”
Tuesday’s practice will mirror Monday’s, in terms of players only wearing helmets. That will change on Wednesday, as the Raiders will close out the week with three straight practices by adding pads.
Till hopes there will be “a big crowd” for Saturday’s practice, as it’s the first day of full contact. He’d like to see supporters bring a “strong energy to practice,” and noted that they can expect to see tackling drills early, followed by 1-on-1 scrimmages later in the day.
Richmond soccer enters new era under Larsen, who noted the “quality” of players
Rising junior Lee Hayden works on dribbling drills during Monday’s tryout.
First-year head soccer coach Chris Larsen is looking to make a name for himself and the Raider soccer program, as he took over both the boys and girls teams upon the retirement of 30-year veteran Bennie Howard earlier this summer. Entering his first round of tryouts as the man in charge, Larsen feels confident that he can piece together two successful squads this fall.
The Raiders are coming off an 11-9-1 season in 2017, and missed the cut for the state playoff tournament after getting bounced in the second round of the conference tournament last year. There are a handful of starters returning, among them rising senior and all-conference selection Evan Hudson, and fellow rising seniors Nolan Allen, Jackson Haley, Carlos Alcocer, Kyle Goodwin and Jose Fonseca.
Mother Nature ran her course Monday afternoon, and a last-minute popup thundershower didn’t stop the Raiders from working out in the gymnasium to start their season.
“Today went pretty well, considering we had to alter our plans and come inside because of the weather and field conditions,” Larsen said. “We were able to get a few drills in and work on some fitness stuff and made a day of it.
“I typically like to get a fitness day in first to judge what type of shape all of the players are in, like the pacer test we ran today,” Larsen added, referring to an endurance run that tested to see the last man running. “We’ll do some passing and some touch drills later in the week, and I like to see them play in small-sided eight-on-eight scrimmages. We’ll do some shooting drills, and end tryouts with a full-field scrimmage to let them see a game-like situation.”
With the help of first-year junior varsity coach Tad Hamilton, assistant coach Daniel Webb and former all-conference player from a year ago Patrick Hamilton, Larsen ran a variety of conditioning and passing drills Monday. Players also had to incorporate communication into many of the workouts, something Larsen noted as being important at this stage of the season.
“Some kids are playing out of position right now, but in the game of soccer, you have to be able to play more than one position,” he said. “The more guys who can play multiple positions will help us out. Today was just the start, and we’ll see how the rest of the week goes.”
There were just over 50 potential players who showed up for tryouts, with 28 vying for the junior varsity team and 25 going out for varsity. Larsen noted it was a “fairly decent number,” despite the whole being “down from past years.”
“I really think the quality of the players we have fits in the numbers,” Larsen concluded. We’ll be able to form two good squads out of those who are here.”
Larsen is “quite impressed” following first day of volleyball tryouts
Rising senior Savannah Lampley (left) and rising junior Jadyn Johnson highlight this year’s returners.
Ashleigh Larsen, like her husband, is no stranger to the program she’s inherited over the summer. The Lady Raider varsity volleyball team is currently the two-time defending conference champion, but it will be without reigning two-time conference player of the year Altman Griffin and three other all-conference team starters.
But that fact isn’t deterring Larsen from taking the bull by the horns, as she put her 25 players right to work Monday morning.
“I thought it went really well today,” Larsen said reflecting back on day one. “All of the girls who were at tryouts attended most, if not all, of our summer workouts. That allowed them to pick up on drills we were working on quickly. I’m really quite impressed -- I saw a lot more girls step up today depending on what groups they were in. It was good all around.”
Larsen noted that her numbers were a little bit skewed, as she only had a total of eight seniors and juniors at tryouts. With the rest being rising sophomores or freshmen, she tried to split the veteran players amongst the younger ones, something she saw as a benefit.
“Today we focused on passing, some serving and serve-receive, and a little bit of hitting and blocking,” Larsen explained. “On Tuesday, I’m going to work them more on hitting and defense, just to see the girls all around. That will help me decide which girls will make varsity and junior varsity.
“We’ll wrap up Wednesday and take care of everything, including making definitive teams,” she added. “I’m hoping to touch upon everything in order to put them in the right spot. I tried to break them up today and integrate the girls -- it was definitely a benefit to them and me, because a lot of the younger girls challenged themselves to learn more quickly by working with older girls.”
Rising senior Savannah Lampley, the lone player who started all 26 matches a year ago, is an outside hitter who is taking reps at setter while Larsen continues to consider rising junior Carley Lambeth and rising sophomore Emy Cooley for the same position. Hoping to make an impact for a third-straight conference title will be rising senior Savannah Chappell, rising juniors Jadyn Johnson, Layne Maultsby and Allexis Swiney, rising sophomore Georgia Grace Anderson and freshman Kaitlyn Huff.
“I was hoping some of the girls who were at summer workouts would come back to tryouts, but I’m pleased with the 25 who came today,” Larsen concluded. “By consistently showing up all summer, I’ve gotten to know them and they know each other, which is good for our program.”
ROSports will continue to update on all of RSHS’ fall sports teams as they continue practices and tryouts ahead of the start of their seasons.
