ROCKINGHAM — A productive first quarter Friday helped set the pace for the Richmond Senior High School boys’ basketball team en route to taking down the Mid-South Conference’s leader.
Closing a two-game week against conference opponents with their second win, the Raiders moved into a tie for first place with Overhills High School.
Hosting the Jaguars, the Raiders used a 22-point first quarter and were able to hang on late to defeat Overhills 59-54. The loss for the Jags ended their three-game winning streak to begin conference play.
Taking advantage of the fast start, something they have struggled to establish with regularity this season, the Raiders led by double digits for the majority of the second and fourth quarters.
Senior shooting guard Jayden Hamilton finished as the team’s leading scorer with 17 points despite getting into foul trouble in the first quarter. He scored a dozen of his points in the second half.
Running the point, junior Chance Crowder chipped in 15 points. He was nearly even in both halves, scoring seven points before the break and eight points in the final two stanzas.
Senior Amer Morrison was just shy of double figures, finishing with eight points. Sophomores Donovan Jones and Kerick Hairston Jr. contributed off the bench with seven and six points, respectively.
Rounding out the Raiders’ offense were junior Josiah Brewington (5 points) and senior Domonic Tillman (1 point).
“The guys played with a lot of energy in the first quarter and they did a good job of moving the ball and scoring,” head coach Donald Pettigrew said. “We’ve struggled to get out to fast starts and tonight we were able to do that, which helped us in the end.
“I told the guys there are still some things we need to work on, especially being able to close out games in the second half,” he added. “We let a double-digit lead get cut to one possession before we picked things up again. We have to be better if we want to win a conference championship.”
The first quarter was the highest-scoring quarter for the Raiders in the game as they used five players to take a 22-15 lead.
Trailing 4-0, Crowder made two free throws for the first of his seven points in the quarter. Brewington gave the Raiders a 5-4 lead when he connected on a three-pointer from the left corner.
With a pair of free throws at the 5:40 mark of the first, Brewington tied the game 7-7. Two minutes later, Hamilton joined the scoring when he banked in a deep triple from the top of the arc to make it 10-7.
That began a seven-point run for Richmond, which was added to by two buckets from Morrison. The first was a transition drive and the second was a layup following a defensive takeaway.
Crowder ended his first-half scoring when he pulled up for a three-pointer along the right wing and made two free throws. That made it an 19-11 lead, which was added two by Hairston Jr.’s first of two first-half triples for the team’s final points in the first.
The high-scoring opening period didn’t continue into the second for either team, as the Raiders and Jaguars settled into a defensive chess match that lasted for much of the remainder of the game.
Richmond maintained its lead thanks to a 12-8 scoring stretch, resulting in a 34-23 lead at the break. Richmond’s largest lead of the first half was 11 points, which the Raiders held three different times.
Tillman began the quarter with a free throw and Hairston Jr. splashed home his final triple in the right corner with under six minutes to play. A smooth transition basket by Jones with 5:53 on the clock gave Richmond a 28-17 lead.
The Raiders didn’t score again until the 1:47 mark, which were two free throws from Hamilton. In the final 35 seconds of the half, Morrison scored on an inbound play and netted another field goal following a steal to send the team into the locker room.
A lull in scoring for Richmond in the third quarter allowed the Jaguars (10-8, 3-1 MSC) to pull within three points, 40-37. Responsible for all six of those points through the first 5:32 of the quarter was Hamilton, who had an old-fashioned three-point play, a free throw and a shot from close range.
Pettigrew called a timeout with 1:24 left in the third and the Raiders responded with three made free throws to end the quarter from Crowder. Those shots made it 43-37.
A Jones drive, followed by a Crowder bucket on an inbound steal, is how the fourth began for the Raiders. Following a technical foul on Overhills’ head coach, Crowder sank both free throws to open the lead to 12 points, 49-37.
Over the next three minutes, Hamilton added five points on a drive and a three-pointer and Jones chipped in a free throw and a transition bucket to give Richmond its largest lead of the night (13 points), 57-44.
Richmond was able to thwart a comeback attempt by the Jaguars in the game’s final minutes. Recording a free throw each to ice the win were Hamilton and Crowder.
The Raiders (13-5, 3-1 MSC), who are now tied with Overhills atop the conference standings, hit the road Tuesday to finish the first round of regular-season conference play. They’ll visit Pinecrest High School (5-10, 1-1 MSC) and start at 7:30 p.m.
