LUMBERTON — The Lumberton football team enters its fourth season with Mike Setzer as its coach and this summer the focus has been on getting better with a host of talent returning.
After the Pirates went 4-7, and closed with two wins in Southeastern Conference play to end the season on a high note there has been a positive energy around the program that has a lot of experience leading the way into July.
“Last year was a difficult year for us with the storm affecting us,” Setzer said. “For a lot of the kids they were just focused on getting through and it’s definitely good to end it with two wins.”
Now heading into the first dead period of the summer next week, here’s what has caught Setzer’s eye about his group of around 75 that have shown up for workouts. Those numbers come even with several kids that played last year not playing or in the area with the flood, even though some have started to trickle back into workouts.
Experience
Lumberton returns quarterback Braylan Grice, its top rusher in Montrez Howell and several keys on the defensive side of the ball that have helped not only with the learning curve of the team for the expectations, but have lifted some of the burden off the coaches.
“They’re older and that makes a lot of the coaching easier because they know what it takes morally, ethically and also as far as X’s and O’s,” he said.
Those players are also helping out the inexperienced units on their sides of the ball with the departure of over 15 senior starters from last year.
Finishing games
After a couple games slipped out of Lumberton’s hands last year, one point of emphasis during the physically demanding parts of workouts has been not just physical toughness, but mental toughness to finish better. The losses against South View and Triton were the glaring points where Lumberton struggled to find that toughness in the final moments.
“We talked about that during conditioning how three games last year were not so much about conditioning but from toughness,” Setzer said. “It’s important for us to show our toughness and learn to continue to fight and not let things go.”
Energy
Through two weeks of the summer workouts, work ethic has not been something the Lumberton coaching staff has had to preach to the team. That carryover from the ending of last year has shown in that aspect.
“The kids are working hard and I like the participation we are having from them,” Setzer said. “This is a very mature team that we have.”
