SOUTHERN PINES — Admitting she’s not normally a big fan of moral victories, head coach Ashleigh Larsen said she made an exception following Tuesday’s volleyball match.
Although the Richmond Senior High School volleyball team wasn’t able to earn a win, it did accomplish something that hadn’t been done in seven seasons.
Finishing the first round of Mid-South Conference regular-season play, the Lady Raiders lost a closely contested match at Pinecrest High School. Nearly erasing a two-set deficit, Richmond lost 3-2.
The Lady Raiders fell behind 2-0 after losing the first two sets by matching scores of 19-25. Roaring back, they evened the match 2-2 with third and fourth set victories of 25-13 and 25-23, respectively.
Unable to keep the rally going, however, Richmond dropped the fifth set 7-15.
Tuesday’s five-set thriller marked the first time since the 2018 season that the Lady Raiders played a full match against Pinecrest.
While still searching for its first win over Pinecrest in 19 matches since last doing so in Oct. 2017, Larsen said the team will take Tuesday’s match as a sign of good things to come.
“We'd obviously like to have come out of there with a win tonight,” Larsen shared. “But this is a good sign for us. We’ll take this as a learning experience knowing that we have the ability to beat Pinecrest.
“I don’t think we made smart decisions in the first two sets on some of the same mistakes we’ve had in the past. I told the girls going into the third set that it was now or never and they needed to dig deep and chase that relentless pursuit.
“The girls bought in and played hard,” Larsen continued. “We had the double-digit win in the third set and that really sparked us to be able to win the fourth and force a fifth set. Unfortunately we had too many errors in the fifth and just couldn’t keep that momentum going.”
Larsen noted that Richmond “controlled the game when we were playing our game.” She also credited junior setter Lillian Hill for doing a good job at “moving the ball around to get all of our hitters involved.”
Richmond (9-6, 2-3 MSC) begins the second phase of conference action Thursday at home against Pine Forest High School (0-15, 0-5). First serve is at 6:30 p.m.
JV Lady Raiders also fall at Pinecrest
The Richmond junior varsity volleyball team lost 2-0 in straight sets at Pinecrest Tuesday. Scores were 17-25 and 18-25.
Up next for the JV team (7-8, 2-3 MSC) will be a home match Thursday against Pine Forest at 5 p.m.
