ROCKINGHAM - After the holiday vacation, the Richmond Senior High School Lady Raiders varsity basketball team was supposed to play this past Friday, but due to inclement weather, was forced to wait until Tuesday. However, another day was added to the wait when Richmond and Sandhills Athletics Conference opponent Seventy-First High School agreed to wait until Wednesday night, but it didn't seem to pay off for the Lady Raiders.
Richmond (3-7, 1-4 SAC) came out of the gate getting out-rebounded and gave up too many turnovers and fell to the Lady Falcons 61-47 inside Raider Gym.
In the first quarter, the Lady Raiders kept the ball moving with Hailey Miller, Lexyona Ingram and Saleemah Brown each scoring two points apiece, but that was all the team would see in scoring as they were outmatched 12-6.
However, Richmond was able to cut the lead down when Ingram added another four points to bring her total to six, and point guard Allexis Swinney chipped in another four to bring the Raiders to within eight at 25-17 at the half. Both teams scored 13 points in the second frame.
Also during the first half, Richmond was only able to get to the free throw line four times, making two of those attempts.
The second half started similarly to the way the first half did, with Seventy-First going on a 9-3 run that eventually put Richmond in too big a hole to overcome.
Despite 20 points from Ingram, with 14 of those coming in the second half, Richmond wasn't able to hit the boards hard enough and allowed the Lady Falcons (7-6, 3-3 SAC) to press at times and at other times allowed Richmond to turn the ball over.
The game did get a big physical toward the end, as Richmond looked to knock the ball loose from the Falcons and finally got aggressive on the boards, but unfortunately it was too little, too late.
Ingram led all scorers with 20 points in the game, and Taliah Wall joined her in double digits with 10 of her own. Swinney added another nine points, while Brown scored four to go along with Miller's two.
The Lady Raiders overall shot 7-of-13 from the charity stripe, for a 54 percent free throw percentage.
After the long layoff, the Lady Raiders will turn around and suit up Friday when they head to Laurinburg to take on the Lady Scots at 6 p.m.
