Scotland junior Kadence Sheppard fouls off a pitch with Richmond sophomore catcher Macy Steen looking on during Tuesday’s game.
                                 Neel Madhavan | Daily Journal & Laurinburg Exchange

Scotland junior Kadence Sheppard fouls off a pitch with Richmond sophomore catcher Macy Steen looking on during Tuesday’s game.

Neel Madhavan | Daily Journal & Laurinburg Exchange

<p>Richmond junior Allyiah Swiney hits a foul ball during Tuesday’s game with Scotland junior catcher Taylor Waitley looking on.</p>
                                 <p>Neel Madhavan | Daily Journal & Laurinburg Exchange</p>

Richmond junior Allyiah Swiney hits a foul ball during Tuesday’s game with Scotland junior catcher Taylor Waitley looking on.

Neel Madhavan | Daily Journal & Laurinburg Exchange

ROCKINGHAM — A five-run second inning helped the Scotland varsity softball team set the tone early Tuesday night in a 9-3 win over rival Richmond.

When the Lady Raiders (4-2) responded with three runs of their own in the second inning, it looked as though the two teams were destined for a hit parade. But, Scotland’s (5-1) defense settled in after the second inning, and behind the pitching of sophomore Sydnee Dial, controlled the game, holding Richmond to just three hits and no runs the rest of the way.

Scotland head coach Adam Romaine credited some pitching and hitting drills they’ve worked on in recent practices for the team’s performance against the Lady Raiders.

“We did some hard drills after the Lumberton game, and even before the Lumberton game,” Romaine said. “We were doing some things differently to put more pressure on our girls in practice to minimize some of those in-field hits and balls in play that should be outs.

“Hitting, we’ve made some adjustments in the box with some batters,” Romaine continued. “We’ve made those adjustments because we know with the pitching we’re going to face, they’re going to throw strikes, so we have to be aggressive and attack the ball. That’s been helping us. We started with Lumberton and it carried over tonight.”

Richmond head coach Mike Way said he didn’t think the Lady Raiders played poorly necessarily, save for a couple of errors, but just felt Scotland played better overall.

“Two good teams played each other, and they played better than we did,” Way said. “They pitched better, they called pitches better, they hit the ball better and they made adjustments a little better.”

Dial pitched all seven innings and finished with 11 strikeouts for Scotland.

“(Dial) was good,” Way said. “She had good control, and she kept us off balance. She was good to the outer half of the plate and when we started to adjust to it, she started coming in. It’s good pitching. Sometimes good pitching beats good hitting.”

Way said falling behind early knocked them off their game and the way they like to usually play.

“We’re not really a come from behind kind of team,” Way said. “We play from in front, playing small ball, so they kind of took us out of our game.”

The win maintains Scotland’s spot atop the conference standings, tied with Purnell Swett, while knocking Richmond out of the tie for first and into a tie for second with Jack Britt. Currently, Purnell Swett holds the tiebreaker with its win over the Lady Scots, while Richmond holds the tiebreaker with Jack Britt, courtesy of its win over the Lady Bucs.

“I’ve stressed this for the last two weeks; we knew these three games in a row were going to be our bread and butter,” Romaine said. “We could either be staying in first or fall way to fourth. We control our destiny. We really wanted to get this one under our belt because the one that scares me is Thursday because when you beat a team once and you see them a second time around, you can get lackadaisical.”

Richmond has a quick turnaround as it hosts Purnell Swett Wednesday night, while Scotland will travel to Jack Britt Thursday.

Scotland was also active at bat, racking up 15 hits. Freshman Lindsey Locklear and junior Morgan Singletary each had home runs for Scotland, with Singletary’s being a 2-run shot at the beginning of the five-run second inning and Locklear’s solo homer coming as the leadoff hitter in the fifth inning.

Dial contributed to the hitting effort too, racking up two doubles and an RBI. Singletary tallied three RBIs, and she and junior Kadence Sheppard both had triples. Locklear led the way with three RBIs.

For Richmond, senior Paige Ransom had a double, while sophomore Macy Steen went yard with a three-run shot in the pivotal second inning.

Ransom pitched the first four innings and sophomore Quston Leviner came in for the final three. Ransom finished with four strikeouts, giving up eight hits, and Leviner added one strikeout, while giving up seven hits.

Reach Neel Madhavan at 910-817-2675 ext. 2751 or [email protected]. Follow on Twitter at @NeelMadhavan.