LUMBERTON — For the last two seasons, the Lumberton boys soccer team hasn’t lost a United-8 Conference game, reaching the second round of the state tournament in both years.

At the center of the Pirates’ success are both sides of a two-striker offense, Hoslerson Joseph and Luis Izeta. After the performance of each this season, the two seniors have been named co-Robeson County Players of the Year by The Robesonian. Both earned the award for the second time.

“We were a really balanced team offensively; it was hard to just key on one guy,” Lumberton coach Kenny Simmons said. “If they keyed on Son, then Luis was going to come up, and defensively it teams tried to key on Luis, Son was going to have his way, so it’s kind of a double-headed monster.”

Izeta scored 32 goals with 19 assists, while Joseph scored 49 goals with five assists, as the Pirates went 24-3 this season.

“A lot of teams, they’d die to have one legitimate goal-scorer on the squad, and here we are, we have two, and even a couple of other guys that can score goals,” Simmons said.

Izeta was named United-8 Conference Player of the Year in his fourth varsity season. After a breakout season as a sophomore, in which he won Robeson County Player of the Year honors in the spring of 2021, Izeta continued to grow over his final two high-school seasons.

“All those years’ experience helped me, since freshman year, playing varsity for four years,” Izeta said. “Obviously any freshman playing varsity, you’re going to be nervous, I was nervous. But throughout the years you get used to it, you adapt to how the game’s played, and I feel like I adapted well throughout those four years.”

“He’s a solid player, a well-rounded player, very versatile,” Simmons said.

Joseph transferred to Lumberton before his junior season, joining the Pirates after winning a state championship in Virginia as a sophomore. He was named Robeson County Player of the Year after his junior season in the fall of 2021 before sharing the award with Izeta this fall.

Joseph, who Simmons described as the best goal-scorer he’s coached, played through a low ankle sprain suffered about halfway through the season; he missed a few games before coming back at less than 100% to finish the season, helping the Pirates finish off their second-straight regular-season conference title and also win the United-8 Tournament title.

“He came back a little ginger the first couple weeks back on it, and was never 100% even at the end of the year, still was having a little pain here and there,” Simmons said. “But he’s a young guy, and he wants to play, he’s a competitor. He got out and did what he could for the team. He’s definitely a game-changer; he’s an X-factor, and he’s scored some very important goals for us over the last two seasons.”

“It was pretty challenging, because I missed out a few games,” Joseph said. “From the point of my ankle injury, it was very hard for me. I had to work hard in practice until I got better.”

Early this season, Simmons sensed that the partnership between his two standout forwards wasn’t quite as good as it could have been, and worked to make sure the chemistry among them would help the team’s success.

“That relationship grew over the two years that they played together,” Simmons said. “I didn’t think early in the season that it was what they needed to be, and I remember taking the time one day before practice and really had a heart-to-heart with both of them, and said ‘you guys are really good individually, but collectively if we can get you guys playing better together, the sky’s the limit.’ They took that to heart and they made a conscious effort to really gel and develop that chemistry a little bit better between the two of them.”

“Like Kenny always says, we had to play as a team in practice and form that chemistry,” Joseph said. “Me and Luis, we had pretty good chemistry. The main thing was to score to help the team.”

Coach of the Year

Lumberton absorbed some personnel losses after last year’s conference championship, especially defensively, but the Pirates rebounded with a retooled group this fall to repeat as league champions. After doing so, Simmons has earned county Coach of the Year honors.

“I’ve been blessed to be a part of this program for many years now, and I’m very blessed to have this group of guys that I’ve been around for many years,” Simmons said. “We’ve developed a soccer culture here. It’s a fun job; I look forward to each day, each practice, and I’m blessed with some good assistant coaches and good community support for the program.”

While the Pirates were experienced up front, the back line looked very different from the previous fall — but it didn’t take long for Simmons to solidify that group and make them just as effective this season.

“Next man up, there was kind of that mentality throughout the season for us defensively,” Simmons said. “Guys stepping in and playing well for us, playing their roles. Defensively we had concerns coming in, but after about a month of the season we realized we were going to be fine defensively.”

The conference regular-season and tournament championships for Simmons and the Pirates came as the team played its first season at the newly-renamed Kenneth W. Simmons Soccer Facility, dedicated to the coach earlier this year before his 29th season coaching the team.

“Every single training session, he takes it serious, every single one,” Izeta said. “I feel like he’s a really good coach. He tells us what to do. He’s on our backs the whole time and tells us what to do during the game.”

Goalkeeper of the Year

While the Purnell Swett Rams didn’t have as good a season as they would have hoped, the play of goalkeeper Daniel Hunt kept the team competitive in more games that they might have otherwise been. As a result, Hunt has been named as Robeson County’s Goalkeeper of the Year.

“Daniel kept us in a lot of games with his play in goal,” Purnell Swett coach Alaric Strickland said. “He made us competitive. He has an understanding of playing in the net and distributing the ball the way we need, and he’s gotten better each and every year that he’s played.”

Hunt made 212 saves, good for 10.6 per game, this fall; this includes two penalty kick saves.

A junior, Hunt still has one more season left with the Rams.

“He has a lot of potential to play at the next level, and all he has to do is keep working as he has these last three, four years,” Strickland said.

All-County Team

Lumberton

Angel Robles — The Pirates’ junior midfielder scored 22 goals with 20 assists on the strength of uncommon speed on the left wing.

Alexis Lopez — A midfielder who controls the pace and tempo of the game, the senior scored 15 goals with a team-high 22 assists.

Oswaldo Flores — The vocal leader of the Pirates defense from the center back position, the senior also scored four goals with four assists.

Korbyn Walton — The athletic sophomore midfielder showed improvement throughout the season, scoring 15 goals with 13 assists.

Jair Santos — Selflessly and successfully filled a team need at goalkeeper in his senior season, but also scored six goals with eight assists during limited field opportunities.

Red Springs

Brenen Acosta Trochez — The Red Devils senior wing led the team with seven goals and added two assists.

Marco Tellez — The future of the Red Springs offense, the freshman forward scored six goals with two assists.

Edilberto Urbano — The junior center back was a key piece in the Red Devils’ goal prevention.

St. Pauls

Omar Canuto — The midfielder was the Bulldogs’ most prolific goalscorer as a freshman.

Covin Gomez — In a nice pairing with Canuto for future years, the sophomore midfielder was also a potent goalscorer.

Henry Ordonez — The junior anchored a Bulldogs defense that held the opposition to 1.73 goals per game.

Purnell Swett

Jace Jacobs — Played all over the field in his junior season, from forward to center back, scoring six goals with four assists.

Kevin Locklear — Moved to forward at midseason from midfield and scored nine goals with four assists as a junior.

Honorable Mention

Lumberton’s Mark Ramirez, Red Springs’ Antonio Bello, Carlos Garcia Hernandez, Brian Villagomez and Jesus Perez, and Purnell Swett’s Devon Conner and Seth Locklear earned honorable-mention selections.