LUMBERTON — The first three games played this season by the Lumberton football team showed how much the Pirates have improved from years past. Friday’s United-8 Conference opener against Cape Fear, though, showed how far the Pirates still have to go to get to where they want to be.

The Colts took control early and continued their strong play throughout, beating the Pirates 42-6 at Alton G. Brooks Stadium.

“We always knew we had to get further than this and get further than what we’ve done,” Lumberton coach Taurius Baker said. “We never looked at it that we have arrived. I truly believe — I’m a man of God, a man of faith, I look at the reality of it — we really needed this. I think that we had it early, we faced some adversity that we hadn’t faced for three games, and we didn’t bounce back the way we wanted to, respond the way we wanted to, but I believe we learned a lot.

Lumberton (3-1, 0-1 United-8) totaled just seven yards of offense in the first half, while Cape Fear (4-0, 1-0 United-8) outrushed the Pirates 290-3 for the game.

The Pirates took the opening kickoff and lost a fumble on the third play from scrimmage; the Colts scored on the next play, a 13-yard King Faison run, for a 7-0 lead less than a minute into the contest.

Lumberton went three-and-out on its next drive, and after Cape Fear took over at the Pirates’ 39 the Colts scored again in six plays, with Geronimo Sanchez finding Jackson Edwards for a 16-yard touchdown pass to take a 14-0 lead with 6:10 left in the opening stanza.

“Very tough start; I don’t think we crossed the 30-yard line in three series,” Baker said. “That’s always tough on the defense and the offense. Like I said, we’ll get better. The right plays were called, the execution wasn’t there, that’s cliche, but we understand that’s football.”

Lumberton had possession for over eight minutes on its next possession, driving as far as the Colts’ 31 before a third-down sack forced a punt. The Pirates pinned Cape Fear at the 1-yard line, but the Colts drove 99 yards down the field to score on a 42-yard run by Faison for a 21-0 advantage with 6:28 left in the half.

Cape Fear’s final two first-half possessions ended in a missed field-goal attempt and a bad snap that ruined another would-be field-goal try, and the Colts kept the 21-0 lead at halftime.

Lumberton’s offensive line struggled for much of the night against the Colts’ defensive front, making it hard for the Pirates to consistently run the ball and allowing eight sacks, including six in the first half.

“That’s a good coach over there, and he’s going to know what we do, find out our weaknesses and he’s going to exploit them, he’s going to attack them, on both sides of the ball,” Baker said. “We’ve got to be ready for teams and games like that.

When Pirates quarterback Lonnie Porter did have time to throw, he was often successful. The freshman was 6-for-8 for 83 yards, finding Camren Flemister five times for 51 yards.

“He looked good,” Baker said. “He’s young, he’s a freshman, I’ve got a freshman behind him, so there’s a lot of learning curves there. A lot of good things, these guys had so much success doing things that they’re going to need to adjust to the high-school level. They have to see games like this. There’s no way we can get to our goal without facing challenges like this. The scoreboard looks like we just got blown out, but there’s some things that we did good, we just didn’t do enough of them.”

Faison rushed for 103 yards on seven carries for Cape Fear and Sanchez had nine carries for 75 yards, with both scoring twice on the ground. Sanchez was 4-for-6 passing for 55 yards and one touchdown.

Sanchez’ two touchdown runs came in the third quarter, from 24 and 10 yards out, to increase the Colts’ lead to 35-0 with 4:47 left in the third. Tai Phillips then found the end zone for Cape Fear’s final score of the night with 47 seconds left in the period.

Lumberton got on the scoreboard in the fourth with an 80-yard scoring drive on which Camren Flemister ran the ball on the first six plays; Reggie Bush scored on a 9-yard reverse run to make it 42-6 with 4:05 left on the running clock.

“We put the play in, we expected to put that play in,” Baker said. “Coach (Josh) Sheridan knew, it wasn’t something we just drew in the sand. Everything worked, that whole drive worked the way we practiced it. A lot of things would’ve worked tonight the way we practiced it, but we just didn’t execute.”

The late touchdown prevented Lumberton from being shut out by Cape Fear for the fourth straight season.

As the Pirates regroup and move forward, Baker says he expects his team to learn from the defeat.

“The first thing you learn about boxing is how to get hit, because you will get hit, so I tell these guys the same thing: you will face adversity, you will face a better team, you’ll get outcoached, they’ll have a better scheme, and you’ve got to learn to bounce back from those things,” Baker said.

Lumberton travels to Jack Britt next week.