ST. PAULS — They’ve called it “the curse.”

Entering this season, the St. Pauls football team had lost in the first round of the state playoffs in six straight appearances, dating back beyond the current seniors’ time on the team to the program’s last playoff win in 2012.

But this year’s Bulldog seniors were determined to break that curse; they not only got out of the first round — they’ll now play in the last one as they conclude their high-school careers.

“It’s exciting and kind of emotional, because knowing that it’s going to be my last practice, last rep, last time putting on this Bulldog jersey and all that, I’ll never do it again with these boys,” senior wide receiver and linebacker Will Ford said. “And it’s exciting because we’ve never been to the state championship before, we’ve never made it past the first round, so all this is exciting and new for us.”

The 13 seniors’ ultimate finale comes Thursday at 7 p.m. when St. Pauls (8-0) faces Salisbury (8-2) in the 2AA State Championship Game at North Carolina State’s Carter-Finley Stadium in Raleigh.

“It’s hard to describe, but it’s a blessing. It’s almost unreal, we’re actually competing in the state championship at N.C. State’s stadium,” senior defensive lineman Ethan Roberts said. “It’s almost unreal; it’s a blessing, it’s like a humbling experience. And we worked to get here, so I don’t feel like we’re lucky, we earned (the right) to get here.”

The Bulldogs have improved throughout the last four years, with a 5-7 record in 2017, 8-4 in 2018 and 8-3 in 2019; the last two of those seasons came under head coach Mike Setzer.

“It’s been a ride. It’s been one crazy journey,” Ford said. “It didn’t start off too good, it started off rocky, but now we’re riding smooth. It’s been a crazy thing. But I wouldn’t want to do the journey with no other coaching staff, trainers, players, none of that, but these guys right here.”

The “curse” includes losses to East Duplin, Cummings and Currituck over the seniors’ first three years, with the two latest coming in narrow defeats.

“It was big, because every time we made the playoffs, all you’d hear around town was ‘oh, they’ll be back home after the first round,’ or ‘the defense isn’t physical enough to keep us through,’” Ford said. “This is crazy, man, because that curse, it was a three-year curse and we finally broke it.”

The game that broke the curse was a 35-9 win over Randleman in the first round, after which the Bulldogs continued winning, through a 14-0 second-round win over SouthWest Edgecombe an a 34-23 win on the road at Washington Friday in the 2AA East Regional final.

The seniors now hope that the curse remains a thing of the past, even as they move on and younger Bulldogs take over as the leaders of the program.

“We’ve got to keep this legacy going, to beat the first-round curse,” Roberts said. “This year, we overcame the boundary, and it’s a blessing; we’ve just got to keep this thing moving and keep this legacy going.”

This came after the uncertainty, during the COVID-19 pandemic, of whether these seniors would even get a final season on the gridiron — then the team’s experience having to quarantine and missing the first two weeks of the season.

“I think it’s so special for that senior group, because a lot of those kids kept asking me over the summer, ‘are we going to play, are we going to play,’ and a lot of times I had to give them an answer they didn’t want to hear,” Setzer said. “I think the pandemic, and us getting quarantined, and teaching the kids and saying, ‘hey, we never know when we’re going to get another game’; they’ve played like that, and we continue to remind them of that, so I really believe that’s why we’re so successful this year is we’re really mindful of the fact we’re blessed to play every Friday.”

As the class of 2021 prepares to graduate in a few weeks, the run to the state championship game has made the journey to this point all the more worthwhile.

“The 300s, the hot days, the extra reps, the working out before practice, the working out after practice,” Ford said, “it all paid off because now we’re playing in the state championship.”

Baldwin coming up big through playoff run

While the Bulldogs are led by their senior class, sophomore running back KeMarion Baldwin has also been hugely important in the team’s success.

He has rushed for 604 yards and five touchdowns in the Bulldogs’ three playoff wins; this is part of a 1,323-yard, 15-touchdown season — all after he missed last season due to an injury.

“It’s been a blessing, and I’m taking it one day at a time,” Baldwin said.

“I was so upset last year he didn’t get to play, but he worked hard through his injury,” Setzer said. “He’s just a hard worker. When you watch him in practice, he works really, really hard, and I’m a believer that your Monday through Thursday shows up on Friday, and he’s a testament to that.”

Baldwin and Demonta Williams (515 rushing yards, six touchdowns) will be matched up against Salisbury’s JyMikaah Wells (1,156 rushing yards, 13 touchdowns) and Hornets quarterback Vance Honeycutt (673 rushing yards, 10 touchdowns); with both teams having such strong backfields, the run game is a potential deciding factor in Thursday’s game.

“For me it’s going to be who wants it more,” Baldwin said.

Setzer to coach first state final

The St. Pauls seniors aren’t the only Bulldogs personnel with a long journey to this point — Setzer’s career, filled with ups and downs, will reach a pinnacle on the Carter-Finley Stadium field.

Setzer was head coach at St. Pauls from 2004-07, left to coach at West Caldwell, his alma mater in Lenoir, and returned to Robeson County to coach at Lumberton from 2014-17. He was fired from Lumberton and returned to St. Pauls; he’s now 48-33 all-time with the Bulldogs, the second most wins in school history, including 24-7 in the current stint.

“I’m really thankful for all the moves,” Setzer said. “I was telling the kids that they stand on the shoulders of the kids that I’ve coached, and that’s come through our program, but also I stand on the shoulders of every coach I’ve worked with, good, bad and ugly. I hope that I’m growing every year, and I’m really appreciative of all my stops.”

He’ll coach for a state championship less than four years after his firing from Lumberton, which he sees as a turning point in his career.

“After I got fired it made me take a step back and reflect on it, and asked myself is it really for me? I think the good Lord answered me, I know he did, and gave me another level of energy to give to the kids,” Setzer said. “There’s so many better coaches than me that’s probably not going to ever get to this game, so that’s why I’m going to enjoy the moment and understand how blessed I am to get to this game.”