RED SPRINGS — For the last two seasons, Chris Bryant has experienced the St. Pauls-Red Springs rivalry from the Red Devils’ side.

After transferring to St. Pauls before the season, he entered the rivalry Friday wearing blue as he returned Red Springs to face his old mates.

“I just came in here with the right mindset,” Bryant said. “The coaches talked to me all week and told me to stay calm and stay collected, and I just want to thank God too because he’s helped me through the process. And, I don’t know, we just came out here and played a good game.”

A big night on both sides of the ball from Bryant, another history-making night from running back Kemarion Baldwin and a breakout passing performance from quarterback Theophilus Setzer helped lead the Bulldogs to a 42-0 win over their rivals.

Bryant caught three passes for 110 yards and picked off a Red Devils pass in the victory. His impact began quickly, on St. Pauls’ third play from scrimmage, when he caught a 61-yard pass from Setzer for a touchdown to take a 7-0 lead.

“He came up to me before the game and said, ‘man, I need you to help me show out for my old school,’” Theophilus Setzer said. “I said, ‘I got you, I’m going to get you what you need tonight.’”

“It’s got to be tough to come back and keeping your emotions under control, so we talked about keeping his emotions together, and he did that,” St. Pauls coach Mike Setzer said. “If he can keep his emotions together I think he’s a next-level kid. I think that he showed how dangerous he can be tonight and I was so proud of him.”

Baldwin rushed for 236 yards on 18 carries with three touchdowns for St. Pauls (4-1, 2-0 Southeastern Athletic Conference), bringing his career rushing touchdown total to 67, passing Bulldogs offensive coordinator Eric Murphy for the most in school history. He also passed Vonta Leach’s career rushing total and now has the second-most career rushing yards in Robeson County history with 4,929; he is 35 yards away from passing James McDougald for the county’s all-time record.

Baldwin and Murphy shared a long embrace on the field after the record-passing touchdown run in the second quarter.

“It’s very emotional,” Baldwin said. “I didn’t think it was going to feel like that; I thought I was going to do it and he was going to dap me up. We’ve been through a lot in four years — fussing, agreeing, ups and downs. He’s been on me since day one. He’s the one who took me under his wing, just like (Marqueise Coleman) did, but he was a little bit harder on me. … He’s always been that father figure to me.”

“I told Murph he’s still my favorite running back,” joked Mike Setzer, who coached Murphy in his first stint as St. Pauls head coach in the mid-2000s. “It’s a beautiful thing. They have more of a father-son relationship as well, so it’s just good. Anytime, (Baldwin) has the ability to be showtime. … That kid is truly a juggernaut.”

After St. Pauls’ opening-drive touchdown, Trejon McBryde recovered a Red Springs (0-5, 0-1 Southeaster) fumble on the ensuing drive. One play later Baldwin tied Murphy with an 8-yard touchdown run for a 14-0 lead with 8:36 left in the first quarter.

Two drives later, Baldwin scored the record-breaker with a 3-yard run, dragging a pile of Red Devils defenders with him across the goal line for a 21-0 lead at the 5:47 mark of the first half.

While Baldwin was attracting attention with his historical notes, Theophilus Setzer threw for 182 yards in the first half as part of a 222-yard night, completing nine of his 17 passes. In addition to Bryant’s three receptions, Setzer found Yoshua McBryde for four catches for 100 yards.

“I know a lot of people, when we go into the game, they look at K.B. as our main person of doing things, so I just talked to my wide receivers this week and said we’ve got to get our passing game right so we can get K.B. more looks and open up a lot more things on the field for us,” Theophilus Setzer said.

“As a young quarterback, telling him, what do you want to do — we can’t keep making excuses of being a young quarterback, but we’ve got to study this stuff and you’ve got to work on it,” Mike Setzer said. “The receivers did a better job of working harder this week, because we recognize the passing game has not been there. Now if we can continue to improve our passing game, we’re going to be a pretty tough team to deal with.”

After St. Pauls’ two scored in the first 3 1/2 minutes of the game, Red Springs only allowed one touchdown over the rest of the first half.

“We gave up those two touchdowns early, and then after that, the whole first half, we were there, we were in it,” Red Springs coach Tim Ray said. “We had a turnover on downs and they went down and scored; outside of that, the first half we played pretty good. Those two early touchdowns we gave them great field position.”

On the Bulldogs’ first second-half drive, Setzer found the end zone with his legs, scoring on a 4-yard run set up by a 26-yard Baldwin dash one play earlier; the PAT was blocked and St. Pauls led 27-0 with 6:55 left in the third.

St. Pauls scored fourth-quarter touchdowns on an 87-yard Baldwin run, after which he ran in the two-point try for a 35-0 lead, and a 14-yard run by Yoshua McBryde to make it 42-0.

Red Springs’ Jamey Tedder played at quarterback as starter Scottie Locklear was out with an injury, and the Red Devils threw the ball as often as the Bulldogs; Tedder was 10-for-20 for 55 yards.

“We’ve got confidence in Jamey at every position,” Ray said. “He’s really good, his football IQ is great, he knows everything that we’re trying to do. He knows the offense, he knows the defense. Anytime we put the ball in his hands we trust him.”

St. Pauls has now won five straight games against the Red Devils, and six of the last seven, and leads the all-time series 36-32.

Both teams will face Midway next; the Red Devils travel to face the Raiders next week, and after a bye week the Bulldogs will host Midway on Oct. 7.