ROWLAND — After his team's first two games, Purnell Swett head coach Mark Heil has talked about how he wants the Rams to get better with each game they play.

Following Friday night's 47-14 victory over county rival South Robeson, Heil said he liked what he saw from his players.

"I thought we got better tonight," said Heil. "I didn't know what to expect out of South Robeson because of the coaching change, but we scored points early and our defense came out hitting people. Our defense is playing well right now."

Purnell Swett, which is 3-0 for the third time in the last four years, scored on its first four possessions of the game and never looked back. Jock Clark had touchdown runs of 21, 3 and 8 yards to put the Rams up 21-0 by the end of the first quarter. Quarterback Ethan Clark, making his return to the lineup after missing the St. Pauls game, added a pair of 1-yard touchdown runs of his own to put Swett up 34-0 at halftime.

While the Rams were moving the ball up and down the field on the Mustangs, South Robeson's offense struggled to get anything going. South Robeson (1-2) — playing its first game since the resignation of head coach Larcoy McRae last week — didn't get its first first down until the second quarter and had just 27 yards of offense in the opening two periods.

"I definitely feel like we came into this game unprepared," said South Robeson's interim coach, Chris Simpson. "We had the coaching change and our offense changed and it didn't click. We're going to keep working on it, though."

After the break, Purnell Swett backup quarterback Chase Armstrong directed a pair of scoring drives. On the Rams' first possession of the second half, Armstrong hit DeAngelo Chavis with a swing pass in the right flat and Chavis raced 49 yards for a touchdown to make it 41-0 .

South Robeson responded with its first scoring drive of the night, going 63 yards in 10 plays to get on the board. On a fourth-and-7 from the Swett 14, quarterback Chris Swett found Edtwon Hamilton for a 14-yard touchdown pass and Josh Butler ran in the two-point conversion for the Mustangs.

Purnell Swett came back with another drive of its own, marching 65 yards in eight plays. Armstrong was 5-for-5 for 63 yards on the drive and Dallas McMillian finished things off with a 4-yard run with 10:19 to go in the game.

"We wanted to throw the ball a little and Chase has done a good job for us the past couple of weeks," Heil said. "He's stepping in as a sophomore, leading the team and doing just what we're asking of him."

South Robeson scored one more touchdown when Swett plunged in from 1 yard out as time expired. The big play on the drive was a 59-yard pass from Swett to Hamilton that carried the ball from South Robeson's 40 to the 1.

"We're just going to go back to work on getting our offense to mesh and working harder on defense," said Simpson. "Our defense didn't come to play tonight and our offense has to show up. we have to have both sides of the ball playing well to be competitive."

Purnell Swett, which hosts Red Springs next week, finished with 340 yards of offense in the game. Jock Clark had 14 carries for 103 yards and three touchdowns, Ethan Clark had 37 yards and two scores on eight carries and Travon Clark tossed in 55 yards on nine carries. Armstrong finished up 6-for-7 for 112 yards and a touchdown through the air, with Chavis hauling in two passes for 87 yards.

Chelsey Barnes was South Robeson's leading rusher with 41 yards on eight carries and Swett wound up going 4-for-8 for 91 yards passing. Hamilton caught two passes for 73 yards for the Mustangs, who go to Pender next week.