Shady Spring’s Kierra Richmond has had a stellar start to the season. She’s helped guide the Tigers to a 3-2 record, averaging 20.6 points per game.
Her best performance came in a game against Westside when she scored 22 points to go along with 10 rebounds and 11 steals.
For her efforts, Richmond has been named the Week 1 Lootpress Girls Basketball Player of the Week by the Lootpress sportswriters.
The award is sponsored by Bodyworks and the Law Offices of Brandon Steele.
The winner of the fan vote was Summers County’s Gracie Harvey, who earned over 20,000 votes.
For Richmond the key to her first two weeks was being in shape and prepared to play 30 minutes each night.
“We’ve done nonstop conditioning and that’s helped me,” Richmond said. “It’s go, go, go during practice and I think that’s helped us a lot, especially as individual players. That nonstop mindset has really helped us.”
The first two weeks of the season have moved Richmond closer to a goal she’s had in mind for nearly 10 years. Entering the week, the dynamic senior guard and WVU Tech signee sits just 64 points away from 1,000 for career.
“It’s a goal I’ve had since I was in third grade,” Richmond said. “I think I’m more excited than nervous. I’ve just worked nonstop for this. Over the summer and in practices, I’ve worked on it. I played in intramurals from kindergarten to second grade and in third grade I started playing on a team. That was a bond me and my pawpaw had and in third grade I knew I wanted to do that.”
With the word out on Richmond, scoring likely becomes harder with teams keying on her. Aware that may be the case, she’s already game planning ways to get in the scoring column. It starts on the defense end, generating easier shots and thriving in chaos. She also has faith in her teammates making teams pay for doing so.
“My defense is what’s going to help me with that,” Richmond said. “I’ve got to get steals and get points that way. But the offense that we run, it gets everyone involved and I have help on the floor. People will realize they can’t just key on me and pinpoint me out. They have to worry about all our other players and they’ll realize that quick.”
