ST. PAULS — Keeping its opponent winless on the season Wednesday, the Richmond Senior High School boys’ basketball team got back in the win column.
Ending a two-game slide, the Raiders started the opening round of the Robeson County Shootout with a victory over St. Pauls High School.
A tight first half was broken open by a huge scoring run by the Raiders in the third quarter, resulting in a 70-42 victory.
Leading by just two points at the half, 21-19, Richmond outscored the Bulldogs 34-13 in the third stanza. They did so without their leading scorer Jayden Hamilton, who is away for the week at the Shrine Bowl of the Carolinas.
Freshman Cam’ron Coley had a breakout game in scoring, finishing with a single-game career-high 23 points. He scored a dozen of his points, including two triples, in the pivotal third quarter.
Senior Amer Morrison had 17 points, nearly matching Coley’s production in the third with 11 points.
Nine other Raiders found the bucket in the win — Chance Crowder (7 points), Donovan Jones (5 points), Yusaun Harrison, Jimmy Tillman and Domonic Tillman (4 points each), Amare Bell and Zamarion Robinson (2 points each) and Kerick Hairston Jr. and Jacques Jackson (1 point each).
Head coach Donald Pettigrew said a lack of communication in the first half led to a closer score than the Raiders wanted. But figuring it out in the third, Pettigrew added the Raiders played a better second half of team basketball.
Richmond trailed 9-7 at the end of the first quarter. Down by as many as seven points, a pair of Coley buckets and a free throw from Harrison ended the first on a 5-0 run.
St. Pauls (0-7) led by as many as eight points, 16-8, to open the second quarter. In the closing 3:28, Richmond found a scoring groove and closed on a 13-3 stretch to take the lead into the break.
Two points each from Coley, Morrison and Crowder cut the deficit to 16-14. Another point by the Bulldogs was answered with four straight points by Morrison on a transition layup and two free throws.
In the final two minutes, Morrison made another close-range basket and Jones made a free throw with 57.5 seconds left to make it 21-19.
The message to the team at halftime was clear from Pettigrew, as the Raiders were dialed in over the next eight minutes on the game clock. Richmond opened the second half on a 23-3 run and followed that with an 11-10 stretch.
Morrison had five of the first seven points on a transition basket and an old-fashioned three-point play. Jones added a pair of free throws between Morrison’s shots.
Domonic Tillman scored all four of his points on drives through the paint on consecutive trips down the floor. Morrison laid in a basket to extend the lead to 34-19 before St. Pauls scored a three-pointer at the 4:38 mark, its fist points of the half.
Coley, Crowder and Morrison combined for the game’s next 10 points, six of which came from Coley on two and-one plays.
Maintaining a 20-plus point lead, Coley connected on the first of his two triples from the left corner in the stanza. Jimmy Tillman had his four points, all in the paint, to make it 51-28.
A free throw by Hairston Jr. and Coley’s other three-ball closed the quarter and put Richmond comfortably ahead 55-32 to start the fourth.
With the game well in hand, Pettigrew kept Coley’s hot shooting hand in and subbed the rest of the starters. Coley scored his final four points on two field goals, which were sandwiched around a triple from Crowder to begin the quarter.
Accounting for the Raiders’ final points were Robinson, Harrison (three-pointer), Jackson and Bell.
Staying in the championship bracket, the Raiders (5-2) will play Purnell Swett High School (3-5) in the second round Friday. The game will be played at Purnell Swett, which was a pre-determined site, starting at 7:30 p.m.
