Every team faces some adversity during a long season. The good ones are those that find a way to respond to it.

For the Richmond Senior women’s basketball team, gut-check time has arrived. After opening the season 17-2, the Lady Raiders enter next week’s North Carolina Class 4A state playoffs on a down note, with losses in their last two games.

Both losses came this week at home to Scotland: first, a 34-30 defeat Monday nigh in the 2009-10 regular-season finale; and a 56-38 defeat Thursday night in the semifinals of the Southeastern Conference Tournament.

It’s not the way Lady Raiders interim coach Nellie Harrington wanted her team to enter the playoffs. The Lady Raiders will face South View or Monday night at 6:30 p.m. Richmond topped the Lady Tigers, 58-55 at Southview in the 2009-10 season opener Nov. 17, then beat Southview 56-46 Jan. 6 at Richmond.

Harrington said her team will regroup before Monday night’s playoff contest. That process started Friday afternoon at practice.

“It’s back to the drawing board for us,” Harrington said.

And back to basics, especially free throws: The Lady Raiders shot a dismal 3-of-18 at the charity stripe Thursday night against Scotland. Several of those missed free throws came on the front end of one-and-one bonus opportunities.

The Lady Raiders reach the end of the regular season somewhat banged up: They’ve been without the services of sparkplug guard Shaquitta Covington, who injured a knee Feb. 9 against Pinecrest.

Covington will have an MRI on Monday. Harrington said she is hopeful that if the MRI reveals no serious issues, that Covington might be able to play with a knee brace.

Harrington said the Lady Raiders had a long talk after Thursday night’s game about what they need to do if they want their season to continue.

Several players have recently been brought up from the Raiders ‘ undefeated J.V. team. A few of those players got a crash course in the stepped-up tempo of the varsity level Thursday night. “I think they have a good idea what to expect now,” Harrington said.

The Lady Raiders will experiment with their defense prior to Monday’s game. Harrington said the man-to-man defense didn’t work against Scotland and may have contributed to Richmond running out of gas late in the game.

“We got tired, and we quit,” Harrington said.

Harrington said her team also needs to tighten up its ballhandling.

“We had too many turnovers,” Harrington said. “We can’t afford to do that in the playoffs.”

Contact sports editor David Vantress at 997-3111, ext. 14 or via email at dvantress@yourdailyjournal.com.