The Richmond Hill Lady Wildcats basketball team played host to Beach High School’s Lady Bulldogs on Friday night, and won handily with a scoreline of 59-34.
Senior Jada Brown and junior Cullen McCormick led the way in scoring on the evening, as they would score 14 points apiece. Recent Division 1 Howard University signee Mmekom Inyang, who signed to run track, finished with 11 points. Junior Emari Brown added 8 points, while junior Faith Evans and sophomore Kimora Ragland each had 5 points. Sophomore Elyza Shuman had 2 points.
With some new names in the group to get in the game and to score, the Wildcats are leaning on them to help take their season to new heights.
“Our depth isn’t very deep this year,” head girls’ basketball coach Sarah Jones said. “We do have some injuries, but other teams don’t care about that. We have to have the next person up mentality. We have to get better at practice and be sure to lift them up.”
“That lack of depth could affect us down the stretch. We are in what is a really, really good region. When we don’t have the depth, we have to be very, very disciplined. We cannot get into foul trouble, because we have to play a lot more minutes. Remaining disciplined while knowing we do not have the depth is the key for us.”
Both teams came out with what seemed to be jitters, and it led to a slow start. After winning the opening tip off, Richmond Hill made a quick pass to what would seem like a very quick layup, but an overthrown pass would lead to a turnover.
After a series of turnovers and fouls, Emari Brown would score the first points of the game that were not attributed to free throws, as she would score two points with just over four minutes remaining in the first period, making the score 6-2.
At the closing of the first period, Richmond Hill would go on a 10-4 run after the first bucket, and finish off with a secure 16-6 lead over Beach.
“We played defense very well tonight,” Jones said. “We didn’t do as well as I would have liked on defense when we had the Glynn Academy game. We really went back and worked on that a lot this week.
“We watched the film from that game and we made some adjustments to how we play on defense. #10 was very good for them tonight. She made some tough shots. She was able to score some and we knew that going in. Overall, we did pretty good.”
The second period was again led by Richmond Hill, as they narrowly outscored Beach 14-12. However, the Lady Wildcats did have more of a lead, at five points, before #10 would hit a halfcourt buzzer beater just as time expired to narrow the gap to 30-18.
Coming out of the half, the Lady Wildcats seemed to be a new team, as they would dominate on defense and outscore Beach by a score of 14-7, and take their lead into the final period at 44-25.
“The key difference in this year and last year’s team is that anybody can be our leading scorer,” Jones said. “We have 4 or 5 that can lead the team in scoring on any given night.
“What that means is for them to score whenever they can. You have to do your part. Opposing teams have to then be able to stop everyone. If they stop one of them, then, on to the next one. You have to be ready at any time to go out and lead and score.”
Richmond Hill would again lead the period in scoring, as they went on a 15-9 run in the fourth period to close out their scoring and the game at 59-34.
Richmond Hill’s next game will be after the Thanksgiving Break, where they will play at home against Brunswick High School on December 3. Tip off will be at 6pm.