LAURINBURG — Hoping to stay atop the Sandhills Athletic Conference standings, the Richmond Senior High School boys’ basketball team let a game slip on the road at rival Scotland High School on Friday.
Having beaten the Fighting Scots the last two times the rivals have met, the Raiders dropped a 57-54 decision in the latest chapter.
Richmond had several chances to tie the game in the closing minute, but junior forward Nygie Stroman’s three-point attempt at the buzzer banged off the back iron.
The Raiders suffered just their second SAC loss of the season, and now sit in second place and trail Pinecrest High School in the standings.
Stroman led the Raiders in scoring with 15 points, and added seven rebounds and a team-high four blocks. He was just one of four Raiders to find double digits, as unior PJ McLaughlin netted 12 points and Quamir Sivels and Dylan Lewis notched 11 apiece.
Jarvis Tillman finished with two points but picked up seven boards and three blocks. Caleb Hood was big on the glass, too, hauling in six rebounds and adding three points.
“The guys played hard and we started fast,” head coach Donald Peittgrew commented from the locker room. “But then we went through a spell where we didn’t play so well, and we let them get up on us by eight at the half.
“I told the guys we were going to come out (in the second half) and retake the lead,” he added, which Richmond did in the early stages of the fourth. “I thought we did a better job of taking care of the ball, but we got out rebounded tonight. And the guys know we have to do a better job of that moving forward.”
Alluding to the fast start, Pettigrew’s Raiders used six different scorers to roll out to a 14-11 lead in the opening quarter. Richmond’s shot from beyond the arc rang true against the Scots, as the Raiders netted a season-high 11 three-pointers.
Lewis, McLaughlin and Sivels all knocked down three-pointers in the first quarter, and two points each from Stroman and Tillman, plus a Hood free throw, gave the visitors an early advantage.
Richmond led 11-3, but Scotland closed the final couple of minutes on an 8-3 run. Leading Scotland on the statsheet was Trey Graham with 18 points. Bruce Wall scored 13 points, Garret McRae added 11 points, and Kris McLean had eight points.
A high-scoring second quarter by the Scots (6-7, 3-2 SAC) saw them take a 32-24 lead into the break. Richmond managed to put up just 10 points, starting with three-pointers from Lewis and McLaughlin. Sivels added a field goal and McLaughlin knocked in a pair of free throws.
Like Pettigrew said he thought his team would do, the Raiders made a charge out of the locker room and closed the deficit to two points, 44-42, heading into the fourth quarter. Four more triples, two from Sivels and one each from Lewis and Stroman, ignited the 18-12 scoring run.
Graham was productive in the third, adding two field goals and going 5-for-5 from the line to keep Scotland ahead. Stroman added an emphatic two-handed jam on a dish from McLaughlin, and McLaughlin ended the quarter with a transition bucket.
With just over five minutes remaining in regulation, Stroman put in two more points, giving Richmond a 49-46 lead. But he was whistled for a technical foul, which saw McRae hit both free throws. That started an 11-5 run by the Scots to close the game.
Twice Richmond pulled within one possession, first when Stroman hit a triple from the right corner with 12 seconds left. Hood added a layup on an assist from McLaughlin with 4.7 seconds remaining, making it 56-54.
A foul by Richmond on the inbound resulted in a made free throw for Scotland, and Stroman nearly made the deep three-ball attempt as time expired.
“The technical foul was a big call and it hurt us,” Pettigrew closed. “We play Monday and need to come ready to play and get this bad taste out of our mouths.”
The Raiders (11-5, 5-2 SAC) will play Red Springs High School (7-8) in the MLK, Jr. Classic on Monday at 6 p.m.
