CAMERON — An early-season skid continued Thursday for the Richmond Senior High School softball team.
On the road at Union Pines High School, the Lady Raiders weren’t able to even their non-conference series with the Lady Vikings.
Dropping its third straight game to start the new campaign, Richmond lost 17-2 in three innings (mercy rule).
The Lady Raiders scored one run in each of the first two innings. Union Pines led 9-1 after the first frame.
The Lady Vikings added a run in the second and ended the game early with a seven-run bottom of the third with just one out on the board.
Splitting the pitching duties for Richmond were freshman starting pitcher Claire Clark (1.0 inning) and junior reliever Emma Rushich (1.1 innings).
Clark allowed nine runs, but only two were earned. She gave up four hits and struck out two batters. Rusich surrendered eight runs (seven earned) on six hits and two walks.
Senior Hayden Robinson continued her strong start to the season at the plate. She recorded Richmond’s first run when she hit a solo homer, her second blast of the season, over the fence in left field.
Robinson’s longball gave the Lady Raiders an early 1-0 lead with two gone in the first.
Four hits and three errors in the bottom of the first helped the Lady Vikings take an eight-run lead. Clark also hit three batters in the inning.
With two outs in the top of the second, junior Macie King reached safely with a double. Using a wild pitch to move to third in the next at-bat, King scored when fellow junior Jorja Moore hit a line drive RBI single into left field.
That base hit ended the scoring for Richmond, which totaled four hits in the loss. The final hit was a two-out single by senior Kinsie Lyerly in the top of the third.
Richmond (0-3) will try again for its first win of the season Friday at home against non-conference Lumberton High School (2-1). The game is set to start at 7 p.m.
