FAYETTEVILLE — In dramatic fashion, the Richmond Raider basketball team earned its title as the king of the North Side Friday and finished the regular season as the king of the Mid-South Conference.
Adding to their impressive run the last several seasons, the Raiders and head coach Donald Pettigrew secured the team’s fifth conference crown in the past five seasons.
In its regular-season finale at Pine Forest High School, Richmond was down but never out, completing a second-half comeback to earn a 61-49 win over the Trojans.
Aside from last season’s conference co-championship with Southern Lee High School, the Raiders have won the other four outright, including the inaugural MSC championship.
Overcoming slow starts all season, something Pettigrew pointed out following the game, the Raiders erased an 11-point deficit in the second half.
The deciding factor that kept Richmond from splitting the title with second-place Overhills High School was a 12-2 run in the fourth quarter. Four players contributed to the pivotal scoring stretch which put the Raiders ahead for good.
Senior shooting guard Amer Morrison finished with a game-high 26 points, including his final 16 points in the fourth quarter. Morrison went off and made five field goals in the fourth and completed three and-one opportunities.
Junior point guard Chance Crowder had four points, but his first bucket of the game in the fourth quarter gave the Raiders their first lead since the opening two minutes of the second.
Two other Raiders reached double figures – freshman Cam’ron Coley (12 points) and sophomore Donovan Jones (10 points). Senior Jayden Hamilton added six points and sophomore Kerick Hairston Jr. made one three-pointer.
Both teams traded points in the first quarter, as the Trojans took a 16-15 lead. Richmond trailed by as many as six points in the early going, but a 9-2 run in the final 3:20 pulled the visitors within a point.
Coley, who had eight points in the first quarter, started the stretch with his second basket of the game. Morrison followed with a free throw and a putback following a missed free throw attempt for three of his five first-quarter points.
Working the baseline and the paint, Coley muscled his way through a horde of defenders for his final two buckets in the first, the second of which made it 15-14 inside the final minute.
A 5:50 scoring drought suffered by Richmond in the second quarter helped the Trojans take a 28-20 lead at the break.
A jumper by Morrison and a drive from Jones in the first two minutes were followed by the long pause in scoring. Morrison broke the lapse with a solo free throw with 37.4 seconds remaining.
The Trojans’ largest lead of the game, 11 points, came in the beginning of the third quarter after a three-pointer put them ahead 31-20. Not panicking, the Raiders slowly chipped away at their deficit and pulled within as few as three points before starting the fourth quarter down 39-35.
Jones had his most productive quarter of the game with six points and started the scoring with a steal and easy transition bucket. Cutting the deficit to six points were consecutive drives by Hamilton and Morrison near the midway point.
Coley made a bucket to maintain the six-point hole, but it was Jones and Hairston Jr. who combined for a seven-point stretch to close the gap even more. Jones finished two hard drives in the lane for four points and Hairston Jr. was clutch from the top of the arc with a triple with 35 seconds on the clock.
The high-scoring fourth quarter started with Morrison sandwiching a drive and his first old-fashioned three-point play around a drive by Jones.
Still trailing, Morrison made a trip to the line and made both shots to start the 12-2 run. Crowder made a steal on an inbound play and laid the ball in the hoop for his first basket, which gave Richmond a 46-45 lead with 5:30 to play.
Pine Forest answered with a basket, which was only erased by a Hamilton drive. Jones made a steal and dished the ball to Hamitlon in the lane for the final lead change of the game. Coley scored the eventual game-winning bucket on a putback to make it 50-47 at the 3:42 mark.
The run ended with Crowder making an athletic baseline drive and a Morrison transition basket.
Lead 54-48, Richmond went on a smaller scoring run, a 7-1 stretch, to put the game away. Morrison had all of those points on two and-one completions and a single free throw during a span in the closing two minutes.
Finishing the regular season with an 18-6 overall record, the Raiders tallied an 8-2 mark against MSC opponents en route to their conference championship win. They finished one game ahead of Overhills (7-3 MSC).
The NCHSAA is scheduled to release finalized playoff brackets Saturday. The Raiders are projected to host a first-round game.
The Richmond Observer will publish a first-round preview later this weekend. The first round of the 7A playoffs will be held Tuesday.
