ROCKINGHAM – After stalling a bit last week with two losses in three games, the Richmond Senior High School Lady Raiders soccer team seemed to get its feet back underneath it during Monday’s Sandhills Athletic Conference matchup against Hoke County High School.
During the first meeting of the two teams on March 14, the Lady Raiders sent six goals into the back of Hoke County’s net, winning 6-1, including a Hanna Millen hat trick. Monday’s match was much more contested, as Richmond (11-4, 8-3 SAC) used three first-half goals to de-antler the Lady Bucks 3-1. It also saw the return of Millen (back spasms) and sophomore Carley Lambeth, giving the Lady Raiders a complete roster of healthy players for the first time in the last two weeks.
Entering the game, the Lady Raiders were nestled comfortably in third place in the SAC standings, and event after the win, are still a half a game back of Jack Britt High School for tying for second place. With the message being to regroup from last week’s blunders, head coach Bennie Howard’s team made quick work of Hoke County’s defense and freshman goalkeeper Alyssa Torres.
In the opening five minutes, junior midfielder Chloe Wiggins came dashing down the right sideline and worked the ball almost to the endline. With inches to spare, she turned a laced a high-arching cross across the goalie’s box to the back post. The ball beat Torres to the corner and a waiting Caroline Whitley just missed a scoring opportunity to give the Lady Raiders the early lead.
But no harm, no foul, as junior Morgan Hooks came to the rescue twice in less than five minutes after Wiggins’ cross. Hooks, who scored the clutch game-winner in the second half against Jack Britt just under a week ago, kept her scoring foot hot as she belted two goals in a span of 1:32 to give Richmond a 2-0 lead. She’s scored three goals in the team’s last three matches.
Hooks’ first goal came when she crashed the 18-yard box in possession of the ball in the ninth minute, and deked her way between two defenders. On a one-versus-one opportunity with Torres, Hooks drilled a low shot to Torres’ right and beat her as the ball trickled into the corner off the post.
Just over 90 seconds later, Hooks and the Lady Raiders offense kept the pressure on. After a Torres blocked shot on Whitley, the ball was failed to be cleared by several Lady Bucks defenders. A head’s up play by Hooks earned her possession of the ball once more just outside the goalie’s box, and she punched it in uncontested for her second goal of the night. The two scores were her seventh and team-leading eighth goals on the season.
Up 2-0 with just over 30 minutes to play in the first half, Richmond seemed in control.
Hoke County’s (4-11-2, 3-5-2 SAC) offense had its opportunities in the first half to score, too, but some clutch saves by sophomore goalkeeper Allexis Swiney kept the two-goal lead in tack. At the 25-minute mark, Hoke County’s Aryssa Mcmillan had her team’s best scoring chance of the half when she found a hole in the Lady Raiders’ defense and charged toward Swiney. Mcmillan’s initial shot was contested by a sliding Swiney, but the ball careened off of her and landed in an open space in front of an unattended net.
But to the rescue came junior defender and the Official Richmond County Female Athlete of the Week Tatum Hubbard. As Mcmillan regained possession to take another shot, Hubbard weaved her way through traffic and stuck her right foot out just in time to deflect the shot out of bounds to keep the game 2-0.
During a five-minute span from the 20-25th minutes, Torres was kept busy in her own net, making several diving saves against Millen. But Millen’s patience and drive to put balls on net was rewarded in the 26th minute. After Torres came out to meet her and slid to contest a shot, Millen collected the bouncing ball rebound and floated it into the net for her seventh goal of the season. With 14:33 still left on the clock before halftime, the Lady Raiders found themselves up 3-0.
That would serve as the halftime score, and Richmond, though it had several scoring chances in the final 40 minutes of regulation, wouldn’t grace the twine the rest of the night. But it would be enough for the win.
Hoke County came out firing in the opening four minutes of the second half and took a corner kick in the 44th minute. Cimone Alicea squared up her corner kick from the left corner and sent a sweeping shot toward the middle of the net along the crossbar. Swiney stuck her hands up to deflect it, but it was too late, and Alicea scored Hoke County’s lone goal of the night.
During the second half, the Lady Raiders seemed to take their foot off the gas, and Howard said many of his players “just went through the motions.”
“I’m glad we won, and I thought we played better in the first half than we did in the second half,” Howard commented during a postgame interview. “I think we just went through the motions in the second half. I didn’t do a whole lot of coaching in the second half because the team seemed to know what to do. But we have to solve that problem, and it’s a problem we’ll address tomorrow during practice.”
Richmond will take a day off before traveling to SAC foe and fourth-place Lumberton High School (6-7-1, 4-5-1 SAC) on Wednesday. The Lady Raiders shutout the Lady Pirates 4-0 at home on March 19, and Howard noted the importance of winning out in SAC play in order to try and tie Jack Britt for second place. The game is scheduled to begin at 7 p.m.
NOTE: In junior varsity action, the Lady Raiders also picked up a big victory against Hoke County, winning 6-1. Sophomore midfielder Kelsey Sheffield and freshman midfielder Jayla McDougald each had two goals in the win, while freshmen Jakerra Covington and Allyson Leggett added a goal apiece. The JV Lady Raiders are now 8-2 on the season.
