Corey Davis

Richmond County Daily Journal

FAYETTEVILLE — The Richmond wrestling team suffered its second Mid-Southeastern Conference defeat of the season with a 57-12 loss to Douglas Byrd on Wednesday.

The Raiders’ (2-5, 0-2) only two victories of the match came from pins by Antonie Bostick at 152 pounds and Tony Mora at 189 pounds.

Raiders coach Ken Neall explained his grapplers are committing too many errors in their matches.

“We’re making a lot of young mistakes, and we’re helping other teams out with the stuff we’re doing,” Neal said. “We’ve got to work through them.”

Richmond will have to wrestle through some key injuries as well.

Three-year starter and team-captain Dalton Lipford, who wrestles at 140 pound, is lost for the season.

Lipford re-injured his knee, which cost him most of last year, in a Dec. 17 meet versus Pinecrest. Josh Patterson will also be lost for the season after injuring his knee in Richmond’s dual meet at South View last Saturday. Patterson, like Lipford, missed most of the last season with a knee injury.

“Those things put us in a bad situation, and it’s unfortunate for those guys that they got hurt,” Neal said. “We just got to keep a positive mindset.”

Despite the loss, Neal believed his team showed improvement from the meet at South View where the Raiders lost handily in all four of their contests.

“The matches went a lot longer than our previous ones,” Neal said. “We fought and scrapped more. There were a lot more decisions we lost instead of getting pinned.”

Neal feels Richmond has a good chance of earning its first league win when they travel to Westover today at 5 p.m.

“I think we’ve got a good shot of going down there and having a good match.”

Contact sports reporter Corey Davis at 997-3111, ext. 44; e-mail cdavis@yourdailyjournal.com