LUMBERTON — After digging themselves an early hole Saturday night, the Lumberton baseball team fought back into the game and gave themselves a chance.

But that five-run lead for Heide Trask proved to be just enough for the Titans to hold on, beating the Pirates 6-5 in the first round of the Robeson County Slugfest.

“That seems like that’s been, on our losses, we just give teams four or five runs in the first inning, get in the hole and then we have to dig our way out,”

Heide Trask (2-6) will face Purnell Swett in the semifinals at 7 p.m. Monday. Lumberton (6-5) falls to the consolation bracket and will face Red Springs at 1 p.m.

The Titans took a 5-0 lead in the second inning after a four-run first and an add-on run an inning later. The first-inning runs came after multiple Lumberton pitchers struggled to find the strike zone, with the Pirates resorting to a third arm before the second inning was complete.

Heide Trask loaded the bases with no outs to start the game and Trey Cheatham singled home Phil Williams. Cooper Uhland’s sacrifice fly plated Brantley Lunsford, Matix Wiler scored on a wild pitch and a Nick Johnson RBI single brought home Cheatham.

Wiler singled in the second inning, scoring Williams, to put the Titans up 5-0.

Heide Trask entered the tournament with just one win, but performed better under the bright lights of the Slugfest against the tournament hosts.

“That’s the best game we’ve played all year,” said Heide Trask coach Lawrence Ches, the former head football coach at Red Springs. “Our record is not reflective of our effort, and tonight we finally put a baseball game together. We made a few mistakes, but that’s the first time we’ve played seven innings of relatively clean baseball.”

Shaun Henderson came on in relief for the Pirates in the second and pitched the rest of the game, allowing one run — on a fourth-inning Cheatham RBI groundout — on three hits with nine strikeouts over 4 2/3 innings. But that level of usage for Henderson wasn’t according to plan.

“He’s pitched well, but his job tonight was supposed to be to close and be ready for Monday,” McLamb said, stating he ultimately was needed far sooner.

Lumberton began to come back with three runs in the second. A Brennan Griffen RBI single scored Tashaun Stocks before an error on the play allowed J.T. Hepler to also score, then Griffen came around to touch home on Trevon Moore’s RBI single.

A Hepler sacrifice fly in the third cut the Titans’ lead to 4-3 as Damian Robinson scored; the Titans went up 5-3 with their fourth-inning run.

Lumberton stranded two runners in both the third and fifth innings. A Chatler Maynor RBI single plated Moore in the sixth to make it a one-run game again, but the Pirates went down in order in the seventh.

Lunsford allowed five runs on nine hits with four strikeouts for Heide Trask, earning the win, and Wiler pitched a perfect seventh to earn the save.

Moore and Hepler had two hits for the Pirates. Wiler led the Titans with two hits and scored twice.

With the Pirates now out of a chance to win the Slugfest as hosts, they’ll hope to build momentum from the consolation-round games still to come.

“Our job now is just to find it, try to find out as a team where we’re at and then use that to come in after Easter when we start back with conference,” McLamb said.

Autry, Hoke County 1-hit Fairmont

Hoke County entered the Robeson County Slugfest with one win — but Saturday, Owen Autry took a no-hit bid into the seventh inning and the Bucks upended defending champion Fairmont in the tournament opener.

Fairmont (4-8) struggled at the plate against Autry, and also in the field, committing five errors.

“I told the guys, maybe they kind of looked past that team because of their record,” Fairmont coach Kelly Chavis said. “They’ve been playing better baseball; you can’t take a win-loss record and say ‘well, we’re just going to beat this team.’ That’s why you compete. Unfortunately today we didn’t compete very well.”

Fairmont will face St. Pauls in the consolation round at 10 a.m. Monday; Hoke County (2-12) advances to the semifinals to face North Brunswick at 4 p.m.

Autry allowed one unearned run and one hit with 11 strikeouts in 6 2/3 innings.

“He threw breaking balls early in the count and we swung at them when they weren’t strikes,” Kelly Chavis said. “There around the fourth or fifth inning, we started telling guys, we’ve got to make him uncomfortable; his job is to make you uncomfortable, we’ve got to make him uncomfortable. How do you do that? You move up on the plate. You’ve got to be gritty.”

Hoke County scored single runs in the second, third, fourth and fifth innings. The second-inning run came home on an error and Dawson Spring drove in a third-inning run, giving the Bucks a 2-1 lead. Gabe Allen scored on a fielder’s choice in the fourth, and Chase Carter scored on a fifth-inning passed ball, after both reached on walks.

The Bucks then broke it open with a four-run sixth, with Spring drawing a bases-loaded walk, two runs scoring on an error and another on a Carter sacrifice fly.

Fairmont scored a first-inning run after Nehemiah Chavis reached on an error and came around to score on a R.J. Deese RBI groundout.

The Golden Tornadoes left seven runners on base in the game, with three Autry walks, two hit batsman and Mynkoda Smith’s bloop single in the seventh to break up the no-hit bid.

Autry also had two hits at the plate for Hoke County.

Jayden Hunt started for Fairmont and pitched into the fourth, allowing two earned runs on three hits with three strikeouts. Kenley Callahan, Nememiah Chavis and Parker Chavis pitched in relief for the Golden Tornadoes.

“You’ve got to worry about yourself and beating the game,” Kelly Chavis said. “We haven’t beaten the game. … You can’t win baseball games when you’re not on the same page as each other, and that’s where we were at today and it shows up in the loss column.”

7th-inning explosion lifts North Brunswick

For six innings, St. Pauls looked primed to spoil visiting North Brunswick’s trip to Robeson County in the first round of the Slugfest. The seventh, though, was quite a different story.

North Brunswick struck for seven runs in its final at-bat, turning a one-run deficit into a 10-4 win over the Bulldogs.

North Brunswick (8-3) will face Hoke County in the semifinals at 4 p.m. Monday. St. Pauls (4-6) will face Fairmont in the consolation round at 10 a.m.

“I still see a lot of bright side in this team; a lot of people didn’t even being close this game,” St. Pauls coach Bladen Strickland said. “The fact that it was 4-3 going into the top of the seventh says a lot about my crowd. We’re very young; we’ve still got a lot of season left and I think we can make a run and get everything we want.”

North Brunswick loaded the bases with no outs in the seventh before Braelen Lanier doubled down the left-field line to bring home three runs for a 6-4 lead. Additional runs came home on a Carter Cox RBi single, a Will Jones sacrifice fly, a run on an error and a Garrett Gore RBI walk.

St. Pauls led 3-2 after the first inning; North Brunswick scored on RBI singles by Gore and Jonah Campbell before St. Pauls’ Jaylen Jacobs hit a bases-clearing double to plate three Bulldog runs.

“(Jacobs) really maturing and he’s growing and learning a lot,” Strickland said.

St. Pauls added a third-inning run on a Cameron McNeill RBI single for a 4-2 lead; North Brunswick cut into the lead with an RBI infield single by Cody Callahan in the fourth.

Jacobs had two hits and three RBIs to lead St. Pauls. Parker Baker scored twice.

Gore had three hits and Ayden White, Lanier and Campbell had two hits apiece for the Scorpions. White and Campbell also scored twice.

Dylan Stacks was the winning pitcher, striking out two in 1 1/3 innings of relief.

Calein McNeill started for St. Pauls and was relieved after one inning. Skylar Lancaster allowed one run on three hits in three innings and Baker allowed two hits in two scoreless innings for the Bulldogs.