The Richmond Senior High School Raiders football team will not have long to process last Thursday’s 3-1 loss to the Porter Ridge Pirates.
Despite falling to 1-2 on the season, the Raiders now turn their attention to Rolesville, who they will face in the opening game of the North Carolina Coaches Association Kickoff Classic.
“I told them at halftime, ‘We need to start avoiding these mistakes.’ If we had done that, we would have walked out here and it could have been 2-2, 2-1, 1-1, who knows? I see us getting better. I see us starting to play more as a unit. We’re starting to understand the concepts. In each of these games, we’re getting better, even if we’re losing and not on the winning side,” RSHS coach Chris Larsen said.
The Pirates quickly took advantage of some poorly positioned Raiders to score their first point. They capitalized on the same mistake just before halftime and increased their lead to 2-0 just before the break. The Raiders equalized midway through the second half when Patrick Smith deflected a Gonzalo Gonzales free kick into the net, bringing them within one goal. That was as close as they got last Thursday.
“It was a diagonal run to the near post that he touched or deflected. With that little shot he was able to beat the goalkeeper and go into the side netting. That was Pat’s first goal for us. I could see the joy on his face. The boys were really rooting for him and that got us back in the game. Hopefully that gives him a bit of confidence for the future,” Larsen said.
Richmond looked to be on the way to victory in front of their home crowd, but Porter Ridge sealed the win after Anton Blotskyi found a gap on the sideline and played the ball down the field until it landed in the Richmond net.
“We had a tough game (Wednesday) night, so we were down about six men (Thursday). We had to fight through it … I was proud of our effort. It was nice. It was the first goal of the year for (Blotskyi). He’s a sophomore. That helped. We needed something because we were pretty sluggish in the middle of the second half,” Porter Ridge coach Ron Ladimir said.
With the win, Porter Ridge improves its record to 4-1, while Richmond drops to 1-2 after last Monday’s game was canceled due to rain. This Monday, the Raiders are on the road to face St. Pauls, then host East Mecklenburg on Wednesday. Both games kick off at 7 p.m.
