ST. PAULS — With a one-goal halftime lead, the St. Pauls boys soccer team knew that the first goal of the second half would be massive in determining the direction of Monday’s game against Red Springs.

“I told them, guys, we’ve got the talent, we’ve got the ability to create opportunities,” St. Pauls coach Brent Martin said. “Whatever they talk about at halftime, we’ve done this before. They’re going to come in and they’re going to try to put some effort on goal. … So I knew we had to weather that, and if we weathered that and got the next goal, shoulders would drop and we would have more and more opportunities as they continued to throw numbers forward, we would be able to catch them in transition — and it worked out that way.”

Gamaliel Silvan Cordova scored less than eight minutes into the second half — his second of the game — propelling St. Pauls to a 6-2 win over their rivals.

“It was a good feeling because this is a big opponent,” Silvan Cordova said. “It just gave us more hope to keep pushing.”

Silvan Cordova and Covin Gomez both scored twice for St. Pauls (7-3, 1-0 Southeastern Athletic Conference) in the win.

“I don’t think they had too many shots on target, I don’t remember Henry (Ordonez) making too many saves, but we were on them early and we were able to put pressure on their goalkeeper and get opportunities, and I think that was the difference was a little bit of quality in the final third of the field,” Martin said.

Gomez scored the game’s first goal eight minutes in; Anthony Hernandez answered with a goal for Red Springs (2-5-1, 0-1 Southeastern) with 22 minutes left in the first half to tie the match at 1-1.

“I think Red Springs came to win it,” Martin said. “I’ll give them credit, they were up for the battle. They matched us throughout the first half. It wasn’t 6-0 at halftime, it was 3-2. They came and bought into the match and what it was, and the pageantry of the game, and they were ready.”

Two St. Pauls goals, scored two minutes apart late in the first half, permanently created some Bulldog separation. The first was Silvan Cordova’s first of the game, from point-blank range after a cross from Gomez, with 11:50 on the clock.

“Just making a run, just not standing there when your teammate is taking it on, make a run in space,” Silvan Cordova said. “And you’ve got to finish those.”

The next Bulldogs goal came when Kevin Lopez scored on a penalty kick at the 9:30 mark for a 3-1 lead.

“They just executed better,” Red Springs coach Andrew Hughes said. “We had some mistakes that kind of put us behind.”

Red Springs got a goal three minutes before halftime when Carlos Garcia Hernandez scored, beating the keeper at the top of the box to then find an open net, cutting the lead to 3-2.

Silvan Cordova’s second goal made it 4-2; Gomez scored his second with under 14 minutes remaining to extend the lead to 5-2, and Alexander Azua scored his first varsity goal with 10 minutes left, establishing the final four-goal margin.

The match marked the conference opener for both squads. St. Pauls has a few days off before facing Lumberton in Saturday’s Robeson Cup championship, held at Purnell Swett, before resuming conference play next Monday at West Bladen.

“On a scale of one to 10, we’re still shooting at about a six, a 6 1/2. We’ve still got a lot of room for improvement. Our conference is tough, the Clintons, the Midways, Red Springs is tough,” Martin said. “They’re a good group of guys. This is probably a better team than what I had last year, and I’m happy for them.”

Red Springs travels to Clinton Wednesday before facing Purnell Swett in the Robeson Cup third-place match on Saturday.

“The mistakes we made are definitely fixable,” Hughes said. “We definitely have the talent, we’ve just got to put it all together. We have a young team, and they’re growing; it takes a little time, but they’ll get it together.”

Lumberton defeats Purnell Swett

The county’s other big rivalry game on the pitch also took place on Monday, with Lumberton earning a 3-1 home win over Purnell Swett.

“I thought we started flat and it never really clicked for us offensively the whole game,” Lumberton coach Kenny Simmons said. “It was a strong defensive performance and we limited them to very few chances.”

Purnell Swett (8-5, 3-4 United-8 Conference) opened the scoring with a Jacolby Locklear header off a Marcos Ibarra corner kick to take a 1-0 lead early in the first half. Lumberton (11-4, 6-0 United-8) got an equalizer from Brandon Rodriguez, off the assist of Angel Robles, with 21 minutes left in the first half, and the match remained 1-1 at halftime.

Robinhio Tanis scored to give the Pirates the lead on a goal assisted by Korbyn Walton with 25 minutes to go. Mark Ramirez padded the lead with a goal in the final minute, assisted by Emilio Carrera.

“I’ve got to give Swett credit,” Simmons said. “They were organized defensively and made things difficult for us. But in the end we found a way and got the result. Like I told the boys, good teams do that.”

Lumberton won its 32nd consecutive United-8 Conference match. The Pirates host Cape Fear in a key United-8 match Wednesday before playing St. Pauls in the Robeson Cup final Saturday at Purnell Swett.

Purnell Swett plays Wednesday at Gray’s Creek, and will host Red Springs in the Robeson Cup’s third-place match on Saturday.