Pirates sail past Fuquay-Varina, into 2nd round

Nov. 1—LUMBERTON — For about the last 20 minutes of the first half Monday, both the Lumberton boys soccer team or Fuquay-Varina had few scoring opportunities, with the game playing out mostly in the middle of the field for that period of time.

Then, Lumberton's Luis Izeta gained possession and ran towards the goal and turned and passed to teammate Angel Robles near the end line. Robles shot and scored, giving Lumberton a lead it would not relinquish in a 4-2, first-round state playoff victory.

Robles' goal established a 2-1 lead for Lumberton (24-2), the No. 4 seed in the North Carolina High School Athletic Association's 4A East Region. Coming with just 1:43 left in the first half, the score gave Lumberton a jolt of momentum to carry into the second 40 minutes.

"I just took my time and looked up, and he was there and he passed it. I had to take my chances and I shot it, and it went in," Robles said. "Everybody got hyped up from it and that gave them a lot of courage as a team, and then we started playing really good in the second half."

Lumberton scored its first goal less than nine minutes into the match, when Korbyn Walton scored off the assist of Robles — who scored or assisted on three of the Pirates' four goals, leaving the junior with 22 goals and 21 assists on the season. No. 29 Fuquay-Varina (11-10-2) converted on an equalizer with 23:20 left in the half as Noah Matthew made a shot after two previous attempts had been stopped by the Pirates defense.

"That was a fight, that was a battle," Lumberton coach Kenny Simmons said. "We came out and got off to an unbelievable start and then got the early goal, in the first 10 minutes, then Luis hit the post and we could've gone up 2-0. But something switched on with them and something switched off with us and the game kind of turned on its head a little bit; credit to Fuquay, they really grew into the game. That caused us a lot of problems the rest of the half; we kind of lost the middle of the field a little bit."

Lumberton's goal just before half, along with a Fuquay-Varina red card that left the Bengals playing a man short the rest of the way, left Lumberton with a tactical decision at the break. The Pirates ultimately opted to play a back three, instead of a back four, with both Izeta and Hoslerson Joseph available to attack at forward. The combination worked quickly — Izeta found Joseph for a goal-scoring chance as the Pirates caught the Bengals' goalkeeper out on the open field, and Joseph converted the shot to take a 3-1 lead less than six minutes into the second half.

Then, with Lumberton's counterattack producing several scoring chances in transition, the Pirates converted one when Robles scored a goal assisted by Joseph, making it a 4-1 game.

"When they scored, we had to step up, especially me, because there's no way we're going to lose," Robles said. "I just had to get it done and put another one in. When I first made that first goal, that gave me a lot of courage to make the second one."

"We decided to become a little more defensive and just hit them on the counterattack with our pace," Simmons said. "We kind of conceded possession to them and they controlled the middle of the field a little bit and put us under pressure, but we've got that pace and we've got the kind of players that we can be dangerous on the counterattack, and that's what we were in the second half."

Fuquay-Varina scored on a 25-yard shot by Johan Rodriguez Nazario with 24:05 remaining to cut Lumberton's lead to 4-2. The Bengals controlled the possession over most of the rest of the game and had some scoring chances, but the Pirates defense held firm to secure the win.

"They tried to run it down our throats the last 20 minutes — that was the longest 20 minutes of my life," Simmons said. "Our guys withstood it."

By advancing to the second round, Lumberton matches last season's playoff result, and could advance further with a win in Thursday's second-round game. The Pirates will host No. 13 Green Hope, which defeated No. 20 Apex 4-1 in Monday's first-round game.

"I'm going to appeal to the community, they need to come out and support these guys," Simmons said. "This is a good thing that's going on with these guys, they're a great group of guys that [has] represented the school and the community very well, and I'd love to get a large crowd here for Thursday night's game."

Chris Stiles can be reached at 910-816-1977 or by email at cstiles@robesonian.com. You can follow him on Twitter at @StilesOnSports.