ROCKINGHAM — A season-long winning streak came to an end for the Richmond Senior High School volleyball team Wednesday.
The Lady Raiders’ stretch of five straight wins ended on the road at Uwarrie Charter Academy.
Falling 3-0, set scores in the non-conference meeting were 20-25, 9-25 and 19-25.
As the scores indicated in the opening and closing sets, head coach Ashleigh Larsen was proud of the Lady Raiders’ fight despite coming up short.
“We played really well in the first and third sets,” Larsen commented. “We were able to keep our pace of play up to stop their hits and we controlled the game a little bit. But the second set got away from us and we were unable to capitalize on anything.
“I’m proud of the girls for being able to take that tough loss in the second set and come back to be productive in the third. That was a big to-do for our team.
“Moving forward, we will see Uwharrie again on Tuesday,” Larsen closed. “That gives us some time to prepare and make adjustments. I hope we can respond and give them a run for their money when they play at our place.”
On player performances, Larsen noted that junior libero Kenley Smith and junior middle hitter Riley McDonald “both had a really good game.”
She added that “our outside hitters were aggressive” and “our defense made lots of scrappy plays.” One thing Larsen wants to work on for the rematch is the team’s communication.
With Week 3 of the regular season in the books, Richmond (5-2) will return to the court Tuesday to try and even its series with Uwharrie Charter (7-3). First serve from Raider Gym is slated for 6:30 p.m.
JV Lady Raiders also swept
Things also didn’t go in the way of the Richmond junior varsity volleyball team Wednesday.
The JV Lady Raiders suffered a 2-0 loss to Uwharrie Charter. Scores were 11-25 and 18-25.
“Uwharrie had some great hitters,” head coach Melissa Dennis shared. “We stayed pretty even with them the first part of the game.
“We had a lot of serving errors the first game but they kept playing and they never got down on themselves. We’ll see what we can do against them next week.”
The JV Lady Raiders (3-4) will also host Uwharrie Charter Tuesday beginning at 5 p.m.
