LUMBERTON — Four Robeson County football teams keep their seasons alive in the NCHSAA state playoff this Friday.
South Robeson’s playoff destination was locked in several weeks ago as it earned the Three Rivers Conference 1A conference title, but Red Springs, St. Pauls and Purnell Swett were picked as wild cards in their classifications on Saturday when the brackets were announced and will have first-round road games.
The Mustangs (3-8) get a bye in the first round of the 1A East bracket as the No. 3 seed and will host the winner of the No. 11 North Edgecombe (4-6) at No. 6 Plymouth (6-5) first-round game.
Red Springs (8-3) earned the 11th seed in the 2A West and will take a trip to No. 6 Salisbury (7-3) in the first round. The Hornets finished third in the Central Carolina Conference, and Red Spring sealed fourth place in the Three Rivers Conference with its win over St. Pauls on Friday.
With its win over Lumberton, Purnell Swett (5-6) picked up the 11th seed in the 4A East and will travel to No. 6 Heritage (10-1). The Rams finished sixth in the Sandhills Athletic Conference, and Huskies finished second in the Northern Conference, after losing to Wake Forest on Friday. Heritage was third in the North Carolina AP football poll this week.
The postseason appearance is the Rams’ first since the 2011 season.
St. Pauls (5-6) was one of the last teams in the 2AA field as the No. 16 seed, and will travel to No.1-seeded East Duplin (11-0) that is coming off wining the East Central Conference. The Panthers were voted fifth in this week’s North Carolina AP football poll.
The Three Rivers and the Sandhills Athletic Conferences each had six teams make the postseason.
After the first preliminary brackets were released around noon on Saturday, Purnell Swett was out of the brackets, and Red Springs was placed as a No. 13 seed going to South Columbus. The NCHSAA later announced via Twitter that it “discovered it did not use most up-to-date information to post (for) seeding purposes.” The brackets were then reseeded to place the games as they were for the final brackets that were approved at approximately 4 p.m.
