Somewhere between his fifth and sixth basket of the first quarter, Malcolm Richardson had the feeling it was going to be a good day.

Richardson had 25 points, shooting 11-for-22, in Penn Wood's 76-47 win over Spring-Ford Friday night in the opening round of the District One Class AAAA tournament. He went 6-for-7 from the field in the opening quarter.

"I wanted to come out aggressive," Richardson said after the win, marking five years in a row the Patriots have earned an opening-round district victory. "That's what my coaches wanted, so that's what I did. I think that kind of just helped everybody play a little better, you know, by taking off the pressure."

Richardson credited his success to practice the week prior, when Penn Wood coach Clyde Jones had the Patriots running heavily.

"We ran a lot in our drills this week and that's the kind of game we wanted," said Richardson, an East Stroudsburg commit. "Going over the scouting report, we knew they didn't get back well on defense. So we just tried to use that to our advantage."

It wasn't just offense that helped Richardson and the Patriots pull out a win. The senior shooting guard marked Spring-Ford's Josh Dishman. The Rams' leading scorer this season, Dishman was limited to 4-for-7 shooting and only 16 points, which was below his season average.

"Defensively, I knew I could stick No. 20 (Dishman)," Richardson said. "That was the focal point of their offense. He scores a lot of points for them, so if we could get the ball out of his hands early, we had a chance to run it up and make things a bit easier on ourselves."

No. 14 Penn Wood visits No. 3 Coatesville Tuesday night.

(Times staff photo / ROBERT J. GURECKI)