MAXTON, N.C. – Something that hadn’t happened in six seasons occurred during the Richmond Senior High School varsity softball team’s game Friday at Purnell Swett High School.
In the second installment of a back-to-back night home-and-home series, the Lady Raiders had their best offensive performance of the season, and their best scoring performance in six years, as they decimated their Sandhills Athletic Conference opponent 17-2 in five innings on the road.
The last time Richmond (2-1, 2-0 SAC) plated 17 runs in a single game was on March 16, 2012, against Hoke County High School, and Friday’s outburst tied that record, which is the second most runs scored in a game in program history (22 against Pinecrest High School in 2010).
Other notables from the game were Richmond’s 1.466 On Base Plus Slugging Percentage (OPS) and 17 total runs batted in (RBIs), both of which rank as the second-best mark in their respective categories in the team’s record book. Also, the Lady Raiders’ 17 total hits and .595 On Base Percentage (OBP) secured spots as third all-time in program history.
The two-game series fared very well for Richmond, as it mercy-ruled the Lady Rams (1-2, 0-2 SAC) in five innings both games, and outscored them 28-3.
“We’re looking better and better at the plate. It seems like all of that batting practice is paying off,” head coach Wendy Wallace said with a smile following the game. “Greyson continues to pitch well night in and night out. We ask her to throw strikes and she hits her spots.
“We can simulate live pitching (at practice), but the more live pitching we see, the better our hitting is going to be,” Wallace continued about what sparked the 17-run barrage. “And when we start playing more consistently and get used to playing two or three nights a week, we’ll keep looking better and better.”
Friday’s contest was much different from Thursday’s in the sense that the Lady Raiders found their offensive pop in the beginning of the game. In a 20-minute top of the first inning, Richmond sent 13 batters to the plate and scored nine runs.
Back-to-back walks by freshman pitcher Torrie Butler to Savannah Lampley and Owen Bowers to start the game put two runners on for cleanup hitter Kayla Hawkins. The sophomore first baseman showed off her power as she raked an absolute laser shot over the left field wall to put Richmond up 3-0.
Following Hawkins’ dinger, Purnell Swett replaced Butler with Jaileana Deese, who suffered the loss the night before. She struggled to settle in, as Brianna Baysek would double, and was scored on the next at-bat when Taylor Parrish hit a hard-bouncing ball into left field for an RBI single, putting Richmond up 4-0.
Sophomore Jadyn Johnson got in on the action a couple of batters later, as she scored Parrish on a fielder’s choice. Lampley would return to the plate for the second time in the inning and smash a line drive two-RBI single to right field, plating teammates Madison Jordan and Payton Chappell to make it 7-0 with two outs.
The explosive top of the first inning would conclude when junior Greyson Way sailed a long fly ball to right field that fell for a two-out double, scoring Lampley and Bowers (who had walked in the previous at-bat).
The Lady Rams made things interesting in the home-half of the first, leading off the inning with four straight hits (two singles, a double, and another single). The double by Kaitlyn Hunt scored leadoff hitter Nakyra Mitchell and Deese, as it rolled to the center field fence. But that’s all they would get.
Way, who gave up a run in the first inning of Thursday’s game, settled down and got the five-six-seven batters to pop out, strikeout and ground out, ending the no-out, two-runners on threat.
From that point forward, Way (2-1) was lights out, as she earned her second win of the season by tossing five innings and allowed just those four first-inning hits. She struck out eight batters, giving her 26 through three games, and kept her ERA at a cool 2.06.
Way sat the Lady Rams down in order in innings two through four, and her only mistake the remainder of the game was a hit batter to lead off the bottom of the fifth inning.
Chappell, who had a breakout night at the plate, brought home the first of her four RBIs in the second inning when she hit a double after an 11-pitch at-bat, scoring Parrish to make it 10-2.
“I tried not to think about hitting the ball hard and I tried to be as free-minded as possible,” Chappell said postgame. “As a freshman, you have butterflies all the time because you feel like you have to do good on such a high-level team. But (tonight) I just wanted to get base hits for my teammates.
“These wins have definitely boosted our confidence,” she continued about the back-to-back blowouts. “Especially our bat confidence. We proved to ourselves that we can hit really well.”
Richmond would bat through the entire order in the third inning, scoring five more runs. Bowers got it started with a double that was a rocket off the top of the right field wall, scoring Lampley. Way hit an RBI single, and a couple batters later after singles from Baysek and freshman Paige Ransom, Chappell cleared the bags with a bases-loaded triple to the left center gap to make the score 15-2.
The game’s scoring would finish in the top of the fourth, as Bowers played déjà vu with another RBI double to score Lampley, and Way drove in her fourth and final RBI on a line drive sacrifice fly to center.
Offensive leaders for the Lady Raiders were Baysek, Lampley and Chappell, all of whom had three hits on the night. Chappell and Way each knocked in four RBIs, while nine of the 11 Richmond batters who came to the plate had a hit. Five of those nine had at least two hits on the night.
“It was good to see Payton come through tonight because she’s working hard in practice,” Wallace said. “At first, the game was a little fast for her, but she’s adjusted and has more confidence at the plate.
“Bri is picking up where she left off from a really good year last year,” she continued. “If we can get the top three in our lineup hitting, with Kayla and Bri and the bottom of the lineup, we should be able to score a lot of runs.”
Through the season’s first three games, Baysek and Way lead the team with a .444 batting average (both having nine official at-bats). Way holds the RBI lead with six, and Bowers has a team-best three doubles. As an 11-player unit, Richmond has a .333 team batting average.
With the weekend off, the Lady Raiders will get back into SAC action two times next week, as they’ll host Pinecrest (2-1, 2-0 SAC) on Tuesday, and travel to the Lady Patriots field next Friday, with both games scheduled for 7 p.m. Richmond will complete its three-game week with a trip to non-conference Asheboro next Saturday (1 p.m. start).
