Greensboro Sports

Posted By Andy Durham on November 16, 2008

*****from yourdailyjournal.com*****

Richmond’s football team closed out the regular season with plenty of momentum and carried it over to the first round of the 4-AA state playoffs.

The sixth-seeded Raiders started out slow, but got going in the second half and cruised to a 30-0 shutout over 11th seed Northwest Guilford Saturday night at Raider Stadium.

“I’m happy that we’ve moved on,” Raiders coach Paul Hoggard said. “You either survive and advance or pack up and go home. It’s good that we get to another week.”

Neither team could muster must offense in the first half. Richmond turned a first quarter Vikings’ fumble into three points on the leg of Cody Threadgill’s 27-yard field goal. With the likelihood of the Raiders taking a 3-0 lead into halftime, Richmond surprised Northwest with a trick play.

Richmond’s speedy junior receiver Quayshawn Dumas took a hand-off and ran for a 45-yard touchdown to help give the Raiders a 10-0 with 2.1 seconds left. Hoggard gave credit to defensive coordinator James Johnson for calling the play.

“Coach Johnson said we should go with the fake, and it was a great call,” Hoggard said. “The play got us going and gave us a spark.”

The big play seemed to ignited the Raiders after 99 total yards in the first half. Richmond had trouble running the ball out of the shotgun in the first half but got going in the second in a different look. Alex Ingram, who had 19 carries for 74 yards and two touchdowns scored his first when he broke a 49-yard touchdown run to help make it 17-0 early in the third. Richmond finished rushing for 185 yards on 33 carries and three touchdowns.

“We couldn’t get our running game going out of the spread, so went to running out of the I-formation,” Hoggard said. “We were able to get some success running the ball out of it.”.

Richmond’s run defense stepped up to the challenge and stymied the Vikings’ run-oriented Wing-T offense. The Raiders held the Vikings to 47 yards on 46 carries, forced five turnovers, had two sacks and pitched a shutout. Leading the way was Phillip LeGrande with a team-high 12 tackles.

“We brought a lot of pressure and confused them with some different looks,” LeGrande said.

Next up for the Raiders will be a rematch of last year’s third round game against third seed West Charlotte Friday on the road. The Lions mauled Richmond 49-27 last year.

“We know its going to be a tough game, but we certainly want payback for last year.”

from yourdailyjournal.com

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