ROCKINGHAM- Monday night, the Scotland girl’s basketball team denied the Lady Raiders a share of the Southeastern Conference title.

Thursday night, the Lady Scots made sure that Richmond did not get a shot at the tournament title.

Paced by 24 points from Brittany Dockery, Scotland outscored the Lady Raiders, 35-15, in the second half and punched their ticket for tonight’s championship game, 56-38.

Their opponent for the finals, none other than SEC champions, Lumberton.

“I feel pretty good about our chances,” said Lady Scots coach David Johnson. “This’ll be our fourth game this week, but we’ve had a chance to play our bench alot and rest some of the starters.”

Richmond (17-4) started off strong in the first quarter, taking a three-point lead (8-5) following a deep two from Torrie Ingram.

Scotland would respond with five unanswered points to take the lead back, 9-8.

Jonissa Monley’s field goal with under 10 seconds to play, put the Lady Scots up 14-13 after the first.

The lead would change on five different ocassions in the second quarter, but the Lady Raiders would take a 23-21 lead at the half following a 3-pointer from Tiara Ellerbe.

Overall, four ties and nine lead changes in the first 16 minutes of play.

“In the first half, we did a pretty good job of keeping it close,” Richmond coach Nellie Harrington said. “The second half, turnovers hurt us and we just couldn’t keep it together.”

The Lady Raiders last lead of the game came with 6:54 to play in the third after a putback from LaShey Brown, who along with Ingram and jayvee’ call-up Deshantia Bell, led Richmond in scoring with seven points apiece.

A 10-0 Lady Scot run over the next 1:34, highlighted by six points from Dockery, put the team up eight, 33-25.

Richmond didn’t help themselves during the run as they were assessed a technical foul for a player wearing jewelry while on the court.

Following 1-of-2 free throws made by Dockery, Scotland (18-7) went on a 6-0 run before a lay-up from Brown, made it 39-29 after three quarters.

The basket ended a three-minute scoring drought for the Lady Raiders.

“She’s been playing well all season,” said Johnson of Dockery, who had 13 second half points. “She had the jump shot going tonight and I think that encouraged everyone around her to knock down their shots.”

Richmond was able to cut the deficit to five (39-34) midway through the fourth quarter, but poor free throw shooting prevented them from getting any closer.

For the game, they shot just 3-of-18 (16.7-percent) from the charity stripe, including a 1-of-11 clip in the final quarter.

“I don’t know what happened to us on the free throw line,” Harrington said on her team’s lackluster free-throw shooting. “Alot of the attempts we missed were on the front ends of one-and-ones.”

The Lady Scots got a scare late in the game when Dockery, who added seven rebounds, was fouled hard in the final minute. She would get up under her own power.

Ariel Ratcliff was the only other Scotland player in double figures with 10 points. The freshman added seven assists to her cause.

Tierra Pate finished with an impressive overall game, scoring nine points, grabbing six boards and dishing out six assists.

Monley chipped in eight points and tied for the team lead in rebounding with seven.