LUMBERTON — As part of its preparations for conference play and beyond, the Lumberton boys soccer team has begun the season with a difficult schedule.

While it’s likely to have made the Pirates better and more prepared for whatever tough competition they may face in the future, it’s also resulted in an 0-3 start for the team after a 4-1 home nonconference loss to Pinecrest Thursday.

Pinecrest (1-1) turned a 1-1 tie at halftime into its three-goal victory by taking advantage of scoring opportunities in the second half while limiting the Pirates’ chances in its final third.

“We weren’t very sharp overall in our game tonight,” Lumberton coach Kenny Simmons said. “Not to make excuses, but I do feel like last night’s game against Ashley took a little out of us tonight physically. We exerted so much last night and it was a very physical game, and I think that reflected on the second half tonight, and we just didn’t seem to have it.”

The Patriots scored the game’s first goal three minutes in; Lumberton provided an equalizer six minutes in, when Raul Carrera scored off the assist of Justin Lopez.

“We went down early, came back and scored the goal there with Raul, a nice ball, a little chip pass to the far post by Justin Lopez to knot it up,” Simmons said. “The rest of the half played out pretty even.

Pinecrest took a 2-1 lead on a goal from short range less than four minutes into the second half. A free kick goal by the Patriots with 13:17 to go made it 3-1, then Pinecrest scored its final goal at the 6:45 mark.

“Overall, we weren’t sharp and crisp with our passing game tonight, so I was a little disappointed in our possession, and then I think we had to resort to a more direct play than we really wanted to play with, and they were defending that pretty well,” Simmons said. “So it was a tough night for us offensively.”

Lumberton lost 6-2 to Laney in last Friday’s season opener and lost 4-3 to Ashley on a late penalty kick on Wednesday. Simmons hopes that the tough early-season nonconference schedule helps the Pirates in the long run.

“That’s the way we’re approaching it and that’s the way we’re kind of looking at it, we put the schedule together and we wanted to challenge ourselves early in the season,” Simmons said. “And unfortunately you lose two scrimmage because of weather that you could’ve worked on some things, and then we lost another earlier nonconference game. So we’ve played three games to open the season against three perennial playoff teams, teams that have traditionally made good deep runs in the playoffs. So we haven’t played any slouches by no means. But in the same token, we realize that we think these games can help us down the line and prepare us for the conference season and beyond.”

Lumberton, which has won all four Robeson Cup tournaments since the event was established, will play a Robeson Cup semifinal against Purnell Swett on Saturday at St. Pauls.

“County bragging rights are on the line,” Simmons said. “We open up with (Purnell) Swett, and the Swett-Lumberton rivalry is always a big thing, big deal, so we’ll regroup and go over Saturday and look forward to the Robeson Cup and that whole atmosphere that’s created with that showcase, and hopefully play well and we’ll see how it goes.”