ROCKINGHAM - It’s a good thing for the Richmond Senior High School varsity soccer team that there are two halves in each match.
In action for the third time this week, the Raiders would need to use the second 40 minutes of play to upset a tough Lee County High School team that entered the night ranked as the No. 8 team in Maxprep’s NCHSAA 3A rankings.
To be more specific, the Raiders would only need 56 seconds and the foot of one player to secure the big non-conference win.
With the victory, first-year head coach Chris Larsen’s team improved to 3-3 overall on the season, and capped off the week with its second win in three chances. On Monday in Pembroke, N.C., Richmond tallied a season-high eight goals from six players to shut out Purnell Swett High School.
Just 24 hours after battling reigning Sandhills Athletic Conference champion Pinecrest High School, that resulted in a 3-1 loss to even Richmond’s SAC record to 1-1, it was junior forward Luke Hawks who swooped in to secure the defeat over the Yellow Jackets (5-2).
And it would take Hawks all but 56 seconds to tie the match and score the eventual game-winning blast.
“We gave up an easy goal in the first half to Lee County on a corner kick,” Larsen noted of his opponent’s lone goal. “We had some miscommunications marking up on some guys, and the ball slipped in the front post -- and no one even touched the ball besides the guy who kicked it in.”
Larsen said the first half was “dominated by Lee County,” as the Raiders and senior goalkeeper Jackson Haley had to dig in and try to keep the Yellow Jackets off the board. Save for the set-piece goal, Haley, who had a stellar performance and made 14 saves in Wednesday’s loss to Pinecrest, did just that.
“We survived for the first 30 minutes,” Larsen grinned. “We had a couple of opportunities to score, but nothing really big. I told the guys at halftime that we had to do what we know we’re capable of doing. And we started knocking the ball wide, getting some good passes and headers, which is what turned the game around for us.”
Trailing 1-0 out of the halftime break, Haley had to make quick work as he made a save on a Jaron Farrer shot in the box. Less than two minutes later, junior defender Drew Davis, who has become a staple on the defensive line, made a sliding save on another Farrar shot that trickled across the goal mouth.
Roughly 10 minutes later, the turning of the tables Larsen alluded to started to take shape. In the 53rd minute, senior Evan Hudson had Richmond’s first good look on net of the second half, as he blasted a shot from 20 yards out that just missed the net.
And cue the Luke Hawks show.
Just moments after Hudson’s attempt, junior Cole Deane gained possession deep in the Yellow Jackets’ zone, and threaded a pass through several players to Hawks inside the 18-yard box. Hawks took the pass and one-timed his shot past a sprawling Erik Contreras to knot the game at one in the 55th minute.
After being swallowed up by his teammates in an emphatic celebration, Hawks wasted no time in giving the Raiders the lead. Just 56 seconds after beating Contreras for the first time, Hawks gathered a Nolan Allen pass at nearly the same spot of his first goal. Playing deja vu, Hawks laced his team-leading fourth goal of the season into the twine.
“Having coached Luke for two years on junior varsity, I knew that he had it in him,” Larsen said of his emerging junior. “It’s taken him a couple of games and some minutes to figure it out, but he’s nothing but pure heart and hustle.”
With 25:46 left in regulation, Hawks’ goal would prove to be the only other one needed to silence the Yellow Jackets and hand them their second straight loss.
Up 2-1, keeping Lee County off the scoreboard for the final 25-plus minutes of the game wouldn’t be an easy task, as the Yellow Jackets were averaging 3.16 goals per game entering Richmond County on Thursday. But Haley and his band of solid backs and midfielders managed to lock down their opponent in the final sequences to secure the win.
With its back against the wall, Lee County made several runs late to test Haley. The senior keeper made big saves in the 59th, 61st, 66th minutes, and had two in the 72nd minute to ice the cake. Haley’s most crucial stop in the second half came on a free kick from 20 yards out by Osciel Dominguez, as he batted the ball down and got help when the rebound attempt trickled wide of the far post.
With 2:56 left in regulation, the head official spotted lightning and issued a 30-minute stoppage in play. The short hiatus didn’t affect Richmond, as the defense kept the Yellow Jackets at bay when play resumed.
The Raiders will take a well-deserved day off Friday and head into the weekend with a Sunday evening practice to gear up for another week of tough SAC and non-conference play. Richmond will host Jack Britt High School (4-1, Wednesday at 7 p.m.) and follow up on the road at Pine Forest High School (4-1, Thursday at 7 p.m.).
“All the games from here on out are going to be tight,” Larsen concluded. “We amped up our strength of schedule this season, and it’s good to get a win against a team that made it to the state semifinals last year.”
Note: The Richmond junior varsity team also defeated Lee County Thursday. A goal by sophomore Hector Godinez Castro in the first half tied the game at one, and fellow sophomore Cale Luckey punched in the game-winning shot in the game’s final minute.
