LUMBERTON — Diamonds are forever — and what happens on the diamond at Lumberton over the next few days will be remembered forever by those competing in the Robeson County Shootout, in its 30th edition for baseball and 13th for softball.

And while each of the 16 teams participating will have their own diamond fun, the goal for each is to win — and the pressing question on the minds of everyone watching is who will be celebrating at the event’s conclusion on Tuesday.

So, let’s look at those hopefuls: a prediction for each tournament’s champion, an out-of-county team to keep an eye on and an in-county team looking to catch fire through the event.

Baseball

Champion

No one enters the baseball Slugfest playing better than Purnell Swett after two blowout wins among top-tier United-8 Conference competition this week, beating Lumberton 16-7 and Gray’s Creek 15-0 behind hot bats Jacob Chavis, Camden Hunt and Joseden Oxendine. If an experienced Rams team can continue that momentum, they’ll be hard to beat this weekend.

The Rams are also hungry — despite being tied with Lumberton for the most titles in the event with seven, they haven’t won since 2019, before any current player was in high school. Much of this same core group was part of last year’s third-place finish in the event.

In addition to an offense that’s gotten hot, the Rams also have the pitching depth needed to win this event.

Visiting team to watch

North Brunswick finished fifth in the 2023 Slugfest, and returns to play in the event again as a better team than a year ago. The Scorpions are 7-3 overall, including a nonconference win over Gray’s Creek, and 3-3 in the deep Mideastern Conference, with two of those losses coming by one run.

They’ve done it primarily playing lower-scoring games, with pitching allowing 3.6 runs per game so far.

The Scorpions open the tournament in a rematch of last year’s fifth-place game against St. Pauls, and could potentially face defending champion Fairmont in a semifinal or consolation matchup on Monday.

Local sleeper

It’s hard to consider the defending champions as a sleeper pick, but with a 4-7 record entering the Slugfest there’s probably few who expect the Golden Tornadoes to repeat. The team, however, has plenty of talent, and as the season gets deeper some of its relative inexperience could begin to wear off.

Fairmont has five pitchers who can provide key innings in a tournament setting, and no one in the field has pitched better so far this season than R.J. Deese.

The Golden Tornadoes’ season has been a mixture of some good nights and some tough nights; if they can string some good games together through the tournament, a run isn’t out of the question.

Softball

Champion

Lumberton finished second in the 2023 Slugfest, and now hosts the tournament with a group of seniors looking to finish one spot better in their final Slugfest appearance.

Lumberton has won nine straight games since a 1-2 start, scoring 12 runs or more in six straight games as the offense has come to life behind Tiara Stueck, Alona Hanna, Aniya Merritt and Alyssa Stone, with Halona Sampson in the circle having perhaps her best season yet.

Lumberton has been in the championship game of seven of the 12 softball Slugfests played, but has won just two of those, with title-game losses the last two years. The Pirates are due for championship trophy No. 3 this week.

Visiting team to watch

Much of the core from last year’s 1A East Regional runner-up at East Columbus graduated, but despite being one of the youngest teams in the Slugfest field, the Gators enter in as good of form as anyone, winning seven straight games since a season-opening loss to North Brunswick.

State home run and RBI record holder Karli Godwin was among the graduates, but the Gators’ new core is led by Gracie Coyle, Sara Coleman and Ryleigh Owens — all freshmen — and sophomore Kamora Bryant.

Despite the program’s success last season, Purnell Swett handed the Gators their first loss of the season in the Slugfest’s first round and they finished fifth. Will a similar result happen again, or can the Gators continue their momentum to make a deeper Slugfest run?

Local sleeper

As St. Pauls becomes more experienced on the diamond, the Bulldogs are steadily getting better and better over the last couple of seasons. They currently sit at 5-3, and have scored 10 runs or more in five straight games, going 4-1 in the span.

Angel Purcell, Madison Locklear and Hailey Ray have led that offensive hot streak, while Yomaris Vasquez has been key both at the plate and in the circle. The Bulldogs could well be among the top teams in the Southeastern Athletic Conference — but first set their sights on the Slugfest.

St. Pauls is the only current Robeson County school that has never reached the championship game in the softball Slugfest. While it would require an upset of tournament host Lumberton — either by themselves or earlier in the bracket — could this Bulldogs team be the first?