LUMBERTON – The Lumberton Panthers defense waited until the most important game to have their best performance of the season.
Stringer came to town Friday wanting to dethrone the Panthers, but Lumberton earned a 7-0 win over the Red Devils to claim its third straight region title. The Panthers dominated all night, but they needed one final stop to seal the win.
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“Our defense, I can’t say enough,” Lumberton coach Zach Jones said. “It was the best defense we’ve played since I’ve been here.”
Trailing by a touchdown, Stringer took over possession with 1:36 left in the game 60 yards from the end zone. Prior to the drive, it only had seven first downs for the entire contest, but it picked up three first downs to get to Lumberton’s 11-yard line with 27 seconds remaining.
It looked chaotic, but Jones said his team was under control.
“We try to do scramble drills all the time and try to make our kids line up on their own, maybe when we can’t get a call in,” Jones said of preparing for the final minutes of a close game. “Some of that played in tonight. We were great. Everybody was where they were supposed to be and there weren’t missed assignments.”
On first-and-10 from the 11, Stringer’s Cayleb Dyess completed an 8-yard pass to the 3-yard line, which was followed by a spike on second down with 11 seconds left. On third down, scrambling to his right, Dyess threw his third interception of the night, and Lumberton sophomore Robert Henry caught it.
Henry, the team’s leading rusher on offense, had a fumble on offense earlier in the game, and for the most part, couldn’t find much running room against the Red Devils’ defense. Lumberton senior Davion Edwards was happy for his younger teammates.
“He came through at the end,” Edwards said. “It’s all about how you come back from adversity. That’s all that matters. He stepped up at the end and won the ballgame.”
Edwards had a chance to end the game earlier on Stringer’s final drive, too. A fumbled ball bounced around near the sideline and it appeared Edwards was primed to recover it. Laughing about it after the game, the ball popped out of his hands and rolled out of bounds, which allowed the Red Devils to keep possession.
“I thought about picking it up and running with it,” he said with a smile.
Lumberton’s defense held the Red Devils to 153 yards of total offense – 52 rushing and 101 passing – and forced three turnovers. In the second half, Stringer only managed to gain 16 rushing yards and 50 passing yards, but 57 of those yards came on the final drive.
Friday marks the third straight region title for Lumberton’s senior class, and they even played for a 1A South State Championship as freshmen. Edwards, senior quarterback Jared Tribett and a host of others have been along for the ride since the beginning.
“It’s been a great journey,” Tribett said. “I’m sad to say this will be my last year playing, but I’m going to make sure I leave a mark here.”
The Lumberton offense sputtered throughout the night. Henry and Edwards had big runs scattered in the game, but the offense couldn’t sustain many drives, and Stringer was a major reason why.
There were multiple times when Tribett had to extend drives with his feet, and he knew he’d have to do that in this game. Lumberton had 285 yards of offense, but none were bigger than the 39 rushing yards the senior quarterback picked up.
On the lone touchdown drive, Tribett had a huge 16-yard carry on fourth-and-1 that set up an Edwards’ 4-yard score midway through the second quarter.
That touchdown held up, too.
“I had to (run),” Tribett said. “It was pretty rough in there. I had to fire up the team and tell them we’re still in this game. We couldn’t give up and we weren’t going to give up.”
Now that they are the region champs, the Panthers won’t leave their home field through the postseason. Lumberton travels to Salem Friday for the regular season finale.
