ST. PAULS — From the very first drive to the last, everything clicked for the St. Pauls football team, who came away with a 35-0 shutout victory in nonconference action Friday night at G.S. Kinlaw Stadium.
“I think it was a good win for program, I felt like we kind of came out a little stiff at first,” Bulldogs coach Mike Setzer said. “At halftime we talked about us being who we are and just executing we are used to doing. But all in all, I was really proud of the team.”
The Bulldogs (2-0) wasted no time getting on the scoreboard on their first offensive drive. A Yoshua McBryde 42-yard rushing touchdown on fourth down quickly gave them a 7-0 lead. The Pirates (1-1) offense started to respond but their drive ended on a fumble, recovered by Dallas Richardson to give St. Pauls the ball back. Bulldogs led 7-0 after the first quarter.
Both sides exchanged punts for majority of the second quarter. The Bulldogs started to get things going again with a 26-yard rushing touchdown for McBryde to make it 14-0 with 3:20 to in the first half. With time winding down in the first half the Pirates caught a break with Brandon Regan recovering a fumble in Bulldog territory, but the Bulldogs kept the offense out of the end zone to end the half.
The Bulldogs defense forced a three-and-out to get the second half started then added on with another McBryde touchdown, this time 15 yards yards out for a 21-0 advantage. One possession later, Jashon Carter found the end zone for a 19-yard touchdown as everything continued to go wrong for the Pirates.
“It’s always about something’s good going to happen and something bad is going to happen,” Setzer said. “It’s about bending not breaking. They have some really good athletes over there and we have some really good athletes. We can kind of expect somebody at some point to make a good play, but that’s okay let’s get back on the ball and make the next play.”
Lumberton attempted one last chance to get on the board with a field goal from 28 yards out, but it was blocked by Aubrey Cobbs and returned to the Pirates 35-yard line where the Bulldogs then secured their win with an Antonio Arnold 24-yard passing touchdown to Malikah Locklear to make it 35-0.
“We’re gonna go look at film and see what we did wrong. Its all about our mindset from here. We played a good program, good team, good coach,” Pirates head coach Taurius Baker said. “We just didn’t execute the way we need to and we’re gonna take this game again and again and bounce back.”
McBryde led the way for the Bulldogs with 154 yards rushing on 23 carries and three touchdowns.
“Everything we went over in practice, and it translated over to the game, and we did a lot,” McBryde said. “Momentum switched over from defense to offense and then the offensive momentum shifted over to defense.”
On the defensive side of the ball, the Bulldogs came away with a fumble recovery from Richardson, an interception from Jakhi Purcell, and a blocked field goal from Cobbs.
For the Pirates they came away with a fumble recovery on a bad snap on the defensive side of the ball.
Friday’s game was the first meeting between the schools in football since 2010.
St. Pauls will host Red Springs next Friday at home while Lumberton will return home to face Westover.