LUMBERTON — With the regular season ending for the Three Rivers Conference teams and the Sandhills Athletic Conference tournaments finishing out on Friday, the new season awaits a handful of Robeson County teams.
Seeding for the NCHSAA baseball, softball and girls soccer brackets will be Monday, and while the pairings and brackets are unknown, five teams are seemingly locked into the field and will wait to see who and where they play come Wednesday.
After finishing third and fourth, respectively, in the Three Rivers Conference baseball standings, Fairmont and Red Springs will likely face first-round road matchups being the bottom two seeds out of the league.
The Golden Tornadoes finished the regular season at 17-6 and are ranked 30th in the MaxPreps rankings, which is used to seed the teams based on their finish in their conference. Red Springs is 15-9 and is ranked 48th in the MaxPreps rankings. Both teams split the season series and Fairmont finished a half game ahead of the Red Devils to get the upper hand.
Two Sandhills Athletic Conference softball teams sit in position for postseason play after Purnell Swett came in third in the league standings, and Lumberton topped Hoke in the conference tourney to move into the fourth-place spot.
Both teams are ranked highly in the MaxPreps rankings based on their strength of schedule playing in the Sandhills Athletic Conference that could possibly have five teams make the state playoffs and host in the first round. Purnell Swett has a 15-7 record and is ranked 20th, while Lumberton is 15-9 and is one spot behind the Lady Rams in the state rankings.
The only girls soccer team set to make the postseason is Purnell Swett after claiming two wins over Lumberton in the last two weeks to steal the spot away from the Lady Pirates. The Lady Rams are 12-8 and 53rd in the MaxPreps rankings.
