
Scotland’s Morgan Thompson (1) drives past Richmond’s Jamyia Lindsey (23) during Tuesday’s game in Laurinburg.
Brandon Hodge | The Laurinburg Exchange
LAURINBURG — In the early stages of the fourth quarter in Tuesday’s game for sole possession of first place in the Sandhills Athletic Conference between the Scotland Lady Scots basketball team and the Richmond Raiders, Scotland trailed but was within a handful.
However, as the game clock ticked down to under three minutes remaining, the Lady Scots were staring at an eight-point climb to retake the lead. While Scotland came six points away from doing so, it ultimately never happened as Richmond prevailed 55-47.
“We’ve got to give them (the Raiders) credit. They crashed the boards hard, offensive rebounds. We missed some layups. We missed some defense assignments. We missed some free throws. And we’ve got to make more shots from downtown,” Scotland head coach Roshien McClain said. “But I’m proud of the way they (the Lady Scots) played because, at the end of the day, it shows you that you can compete with one of the top 4A teams in the state. You right there; you can compete.”
McClain thought another reason his team didn’t win was the 24-12 free-throw differential that favored Richmond, which made 15 of them; Scotland succeeded on just four.
”They (the Raiders) got foul calls, we didn’t,” McClain said. “They’re doing the same thing we’re doing. We’re getting bumped, rolled to the basket like a horse; we’re not getting the call. They throw their body into us with our hands straight up; they get the call. I don’t know what’s the difference.”
With Richmond (14-4, 6-0 Sandhills Athletic Conference) leading 51-45 with 29 seconds left, Jasiah Gilchrist and Jamyia Lindsey were each fouled and able to go 2-for-2 on their free-throw tries down the stretch to help the Raiders hold on.
Scotland (13-2, 5-1 SAC) went into the fourth quarter down 40-37, but after a layup by Scotland’s Morgan Thompson, Lindsey and Madisen Jackson connected on shots at the rim to push Richmond’s lead to 44-39. After remaining close, Scotland went behind 51-43 with 2:49 to go after Gilchrist made a layup-and-one. Richmond dribbled and passed the ball to drain the clock within the last two minutes, but after failing to come away with points, Richmond fouled Thompson on her way to the paint, and she knocked down two at the foul stripe to make it 51-45.
Thompson led the way for the Lady Scots with 21 points; Alicia McClain and Kayla Simmons scored nine each.
Lindsey scored 20 points for Richmond. Gilchrist scored 12, and Jackson scored 10.
“It shows you things that you have to keep working on and taking practice even more serious now,” Roshien McClain said. “You have to now understand why (we) do the certain things we do in practice. It ain’t there just ‘cause, oh, we’ve got to practice. No, we’ve got to practice for a reason. The things that we work on are the same shots, the same missed opportunities in practice that we do. So that means you’ve got to be more focused and disciplined to do it every single practice.”
Scotland opened the game with a 12-4 lead, but it was reduced to three following a layup from Lindsey and a 3-pointer from the right wing by Ryelan Lyerly; Simmons connected on a layup to make Scotland’s lead 14-9 at the end of the first quarter.
With 5:07 left in the first half, two foul shots from Lindsey brought the Raiders’ deficit to 17-15, but a layup and corner 3 by Simmons made it 22-15. Richmond closed the second quarter outscoring Scotland 9-2 and knotting the score at 24-24 at the break.
After a Lindsey layup 37 seconds into the third quarter, the Lady Scots scored six consecutive points to lead 30-26. Richmond overtook Scotland, though, using an 8-0 stretch to do so before Thompson’s layup stopped the damage. Alicia McClain tied it at 35-35 with a banked-in trey, but Richmond ended the frame with five of the seven points scored to get on top 40-37.
Scotland takes on visiting Hoke County on Friday.
Wall drops 39 points to lead Raiders past Scotland men
Facing a tall task Tuesday night against the Richmond Raiders, the Scotland Fighting Scots figured it’d be 32 minutes of trying to contain North Carolina State recruit Paul McNeil Jr., who is a week removed from breaking multiple North Carolina High School Athletic Association records with a 71-point performance against Lee County.
And while it was, McNeil Jr. wasn’t the star of the night; it was Jamarion Wall and his 39 points, which included 11 3-pointers on 20 attempts — a school record for most in a game. Wall scored 20 in the fourth quarter to help lead Richmond past Scotland 84-51.
The loss is Scotland’s seventh consecutive against Richmond, going back to the 2019-20 season.
After coming off an 82-46 loss to Westover the night before, Scotland head coach Michael Malpass felt the quick turnaround already had his team at a disadvantage.
“I think two nights in a row, playing two really good teams; Westover last night was long and really aggressive,” Malpass said. “And they played a similar style as Richmond in that they overdefended, and they make you go into their body, and then they want the officials to either make the call or not make the call. And over time, when your numbers are a little thin, you get tired late.”
Scotland (7-10, 3-3 Sandhills Athletic Conference) held an early 4-3 lead following a layup by Jonathan Graham. But McNeil Jr. scored the first two of his 14 points in the contest at the free-throw line on the ensuing possession to give Richmond (13-5, 6-0 SAC) the lead, which they never lost from that point. Scotland’s Jaiquez Caldwell tied it up at 5-5 with a foul shot, but a one-handed dunk by Ahaiver McDonald finished a 12-3 run to put the Raiders ahead 17-8. Each team scored five points to round out the first-quarter scoring, with Richmond leading 22-13.
To begin the second, Shylan Harrell had six of Scotland’s 11 points in the first five minutes, but JV Drake had nine of Richmond’s first 12 points, which put the Raiders up 34-24. The Scots stayed within 10 before a left-wing 3 and reverse layup by Wall extended Richmond’s lead to 43-28 to close the first half.
Both teams traded buckets on four possessions two minutes into the third, but Richmond’s lead went to 52-32 after a baseline jumper by Braylon Barfield.
“We put a little set in in the second half. In the first seven possessions, we got really good looks off of our little triangle,” Malpass said. “So anytime you can leave a game with a new approach, kind of the way we trapped Paul, you don’t have to do that against a lot of people, obviously him, but that’s something we hadn’t done in our zone that was effective. So we try to look at it like, what was good? Because if you dwell on getting your butt kicked, it just sends them around the wrong direction.”
The largest lead of the period for the Raiders came when Wall hit a 3-point shot to make it 58-33; after Brady Fowler answered with a 3, Scotland’s deficit was between 18 and 22 points until the end of the quarter, when Richmond led 62-41.
Scotland’s Dylan Lampley started the final frame with a layup, but Wall countered with a 17-4 personal scoring run, helping Richmond go up 79-47. Harrell and Lampley scored two-point buckets each to close out the scoring for Scotland, and Wall added another 3-pointer to his total with 18 seconds remaining.
“When your threats are not everywhere, it tends to wear you out later in the game,” Malpass said. “It’s just like last night; we were only down 32-29 at the half, and they were physically imposing, and we beat them in the second quarter 22-18. But the third quarter, we were a totally different team because the mind part of that, the physical part of that, it’s hard to go against a very elite team.”
Harrell finished with 18 points, and Lampley added 10 points for the Scots.
Brandon Hodge is the sports editor for The Laurinburg Exchange. He can be reached at 910-506-3171 or by email at bhodge@laurinburgexch.wpenginepowered.com. Follow him on X/Twitter at @BrandonHSports.