LUMBERTON — The Lumberton boys soccer team made it clear quickly Saturday night that it would be difficult to take the Robeson Cup from them, as they defended the title they won in 2019.

The Pirates scored three goals in the first 10 minutes and were on their way to a 7-4 victory over St. Pauls, retaining the tournament championship.

Holserson Joseph had two of those three goals, and the third came when Luis Izeta rebounded Joseph’s shot off the crossbar and scored. Joseph, who had a hat trick in the Pirates’ semifinal win over Purnell Swett, was named tournament MVP.

“He’s got a knack for starting quick,” Lumberton coach Kenny Simmons said. “He’s had a lot of early goals in a lot of games for us. When you have a player like that that can score early goals, that’s going to put you in a good way.”

“Playing striker, we got some goals,” Joseph said. “Midfield got the ball (to me) and we got three goals.”

St. Pauls (6-6) answered with two goals by Anthony Sosa; he hit a running goal with 28 minutes left in the half to put the Bulldogs on the board, then scored 11 minutes before the break to make it 3-2.

“You can have them come out and score goals early on you, but it’s not about how quick or how early it is but how you respond,” St. Pauls coach Brent Martin said. “I told my guys, it doesn’t matter if they score one, two, three, four, five, six, you have to play the same way throughout the entire 80 minutes of the game.”

“We got off to a good start, got a good lead,” Simmons said. “But you’ve got to give St. Pauls a lot credit; they could’ve folded the tent and packed it away, and they didn’t. I think Brent should be proud of them; they hung in there and they made a game of it.”

Lumberton (15-1-1) got a goal with 9 minutes left in the half, as Alexis Lopez scored off a Jair Santos assist, giving the Pirates a 4-2 halftime lead.

“We knew that next goal in the early stage of the second half was going to be pivotal, if we went up 5-2, we felt like we were going to be in pretty good control; if they make it 4-3 it was going to be a game to the end,” Simmons said. “We were all over that first 10 minutes and had a couple looks and came up empty, and then we did finally get one and went up 5-2 and set the tone for the rest of the game.”

That fifth goal came from Angel Robles, and the Pirates added two more, on a penalty kick by Izeta and a second goal by Lopez, to take a 7-2 lead with 20 minutes to go.

“We’re just balanced as a team and pass the ball,” Joseph said. “Everybody trusts everybody as our teammates.”

The Pirates also had several shots hit either the crossbar or the side goalposts throughout the game.

St. Pauls added goals from Daniel Regino and Sosa over the last five minutes.

“We played too much as individuals, and not as a team, and anytime you try to show how much you can do, you’ll always be beaten by a team that shows what they can do,” Martin said. “That is what happened tonight, and if I’m honest this is an accurate reflection of the gap between the two teams, and it could’ve been worse.”

Lumberton won the first edition of the Robeson Cup in 2019; this year’s tournament was the first time it has been played since due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I’m glad we were able to do this,” Simmons said. “We didn’t play it last year; it gets pushed back three times this year, so you had some doubts in your mind a couple weeks ago whether this could be played. I think it’s great, great for the participating schools, it’s good for the soccer community. This is a chance to all get on the field at the same time and showcase all the talent in the county.”

The showcase for Robeson County soccer came after middle school soccer in the county was recently approved, after a push led by Martin and Simmons to get it established.

“There are no losses here for me and Kenny tonight, because the reality of it is, middle school soccer just got approved to be played this spring,” Martin said. “Just the fact that we’re here playing, just the fact that there will be children that will get the opportunity to play in the spring … there’s no game in Robeson County that we can ever walk away a loser.”

Lumberton, which leads the United-8 Conference, plays Monday at Seventy-First; St. Pauls will host West Bladen.

Red Springs wins third-place match

Purnell Swett led Red Springs for most of the Robeson Cup’s third-place match Saturday at Lumberton — then two goals in a two-minute stretch turned the match in favor of the Red Devils in a 2-1 win.

Olvin Diaz scored for Red Springs (6-3-1) to tie the match at 1-1 with 25:14 to go. Then, exactly two minutes later, Frejer Dominguez scored to give the Red Devils a 2-1 lead.

“We stopped trying to dribble through everybody and started passing the ball, and that made a big difference. That was the difference in the game, once we started playing together and stopped trying to beat the whole team by ourselves.”

Cale Harris had given Purnell Swett (11-5) the lead with a goal 9 minutes into the match off a Kevin Locklear corner kick. The Rams held that 1-0 lead for 46 minutes before Red Springs’ two-goal spurt.

“(We had) a lack of focus, a lack of intensity,” Purnell Swett coach Alaric Strickland said. “It was building, you could just tell the trend was going their way and they took advantage of. It was just simple things, lack of focus on the defensive end, and they took full advantage of those liabilities that we had.”

Red Springs, who is second in the Southeastern Athletic Conference, hosts third-place East Bladen Monday and plays Wednesday at nonconference foe Seventy-First.

“That’s a good way to continue making progress in our season; we’ve got two big games coming up, especially Monday against East Bladen,” Judd said. “This is a good way to end our week this week and start our week next week, so I’m happy with the outcome.”

The Rams enter the final week of the regular season in second place in the United-8 and ranked 34th in the 4A East RPI rankings. They play Monday at Marlboro Academy before finishing their conference slate Tuesday at Cape Fear and Wednesday vs. Lumberton.

“(We need to) just forget about it and move on, because we didn’t play well,” Strickland said. “We just told them that. This is not who we are; we’re trending downward, and we’ve got to start trending upward, and the next game we’ve got to be ready to go and take care of business, because otherwise this is not going to end well if we keep playing the way we’ve been.”