LUMBERTON — Something about facing Lumberton brings out the best in Purnell Swett’s Jacob Chavis.

“I’ve heard about it ever since I was young, since I was in middle school, since I was in elementary,” the Rams’ senior said. “It just means everything to me to come in here and just beat Lumberton. That’s all I want to do, just win and beat Lumberton.”

After a strong record both on the mound and at the plate against the Pirates throughout his career, Chavis turned in another stellar performance in his last regular-season appearance against Lumberton Friday, throwing six innings of three-hit ball helping lead the Rams to a 5-2 win at their rivals.

Purnell Swett (15-7, 11-3 United-8 Conference) clinched a state playoff berth with the victory, as the Rams will be the top 4A state playoff seed from the United-8 as the league’s highest finisher among 4A teams. Purnell Swett nearly earned a share of the conference championship, too, with Cape Fear trailing Gray’s Creek in the seventh inning Friday, but the Colts earned a walk-off victory to clinch the outright title.

“I’m proud of these guys,” Purnell Swett coach Jeff Lamb said. “A lot of people have — they’ve wrote me off, they’ve wrote this team off, and these guys have rallied. I couldn’t be more proud of them. Now we can play some bonus baseball.”

Lumberton (12-8, 9-5 United-8) entered the night still with a chance for the United-8’s top 4A state playoff seed — with that automatic bid being the easiest route into the postseason for the Pirates, ranked 37th in the RPI for 4A East entering Friday — leaving plenty on the line for both squads beyond just the always-existing rivalry bragging rights.

“We knew what was on the line, but we really wasn’t worried about it because when you play with stuff on the line and thinking about it, most of the time you’re going to have mistakes,” Chavis said. “So we came in just, OK, let’s play baseball. Let’s have fun, let’s do it together, let’s be a team. That’s just the mindset we came in (with). We didn’t dominate like we wanted to but we still came out with the win.”

Chavis, who signed Wednesday to play baseball at Fayetteville Tech, struck out seven in his six innings, allowing one earned run. He also had a hit and a run offensively.

“He did his thing,” said Purnell Swett’s Jacey Jacobs, who caught Chavis all game. “He’s always like this; he shoves, and it’s good how he throws against the rival game, because that’s a game that we really needed. He just went out there and did his thing and I’m really proud of him.”

This continued a pattern through Chavis’ career of success against the Pirates; he has allowed one earned run or less in three of his four starts against Lumberton the last two seasons, with the Rams winning all four games, and also is 8-for-23 at the plate with four runs and nine RBIs in six career games in the series.

The Rams scored five runs on 10 hits, even as Lumberton pitcher Damian Robinson didn’t pitch poorly, including a stretch where he retired eight straight Rams hitters.

“I thought it was a good ballgame,” Lumberton coach Jeff McLamb said. “I thought both pitchers (pitched well); from the third inning on I thought Damian was dialed in. I thought it took him a little while to get his emotions in from the senior night and stuff, and they got the big hits, and jumped on the fastball, and I felt like we missed a bunch of fastballs.”

Purnell Swett struck first with a three-run second inning; the big hit in the inning came on a two-RBI double by Jacobs to plate Camden Hunt and Chandon Sanderson, who both reached on singles. Jacobs later scored on a wild pitch for a 3-0 Rams advantage.

“A couple games that I’ve been struggling on, I’ve been kind of selfish,” Jacobs said. “Whenever I came out here I was more chill, and I said I need to be a team player tonight because we really need this win. So I just went up there and calmed down, and I saw the fastball and I just let it loose, just hit it.”

The Rams added a third-inning run after Jacob Chavis singled, stole second, advanced to third on a groundout and scored on a Hunt RBI single for a 4-0 lead.

“We’ve really been hitting hard on our approach at the plate, and you can see tonight, we didn’t look like the same team from a month ago or two weeks ago,” Lamb said. “These guys are buying in, and what a great time to buy in.”

Lumberton scored two runs in the third inning to cut the lead in half as Bryson Hester and Chatler Maynor came home on an infield error. The Pirates, though, couldn’t convert on a leadoff walk in the fifth and a leadoff double by Robinson in the sixth.

Purnell Swett added an insurance run in the seventh when Waydan McMillan singled and an outfield error on the play allowed Bladdon Hammonds to score for a 5-2 advantage. Sanderson pitched a perfect bottom of the seventh with two strikeouts for the Rams to earn the save.

Jacobs, Hammonds and Hunt had two hits each to lead Purnell Swett. Robinson had two of Lumberton’s three hits against Chavis.

The Rams enter next week’s United-8 Conference Tournament as the No. 2 seed, and will face No. 7 Seventy-First in the quarterfinals on Monday.

Lumberton is in a three-way tie with Gray’s Creek and South View for third place, with each having split the head-to-head season series against each other, leaving it unclear at press time how each will be seeded. Regardless, the Pirates will need a good week to advance past the conference tournament into the state playoffs.

“I told the boys, our playoffs start Monday,” McLamb said. “We’ve got to win a few, even try to win the thing to make sure we get in. If we win a few in the conference tournament I think that’ll be close.”