LUMBERTON-This past Thursday, Lumberton defensive lineman, Jermaine Kessler, was recently named to the 2009 North Carolina Shrine Bowl roster.

The next night, he showed why he was deserving of that honor, with a little help from his secondary.

The Pirates safties forced Scotland quarterback Caison Murphy into throwing five interceptions. Lumberton turned those miscues into 24 points and kept the Scots winless in the Southeastern Conference, 38-22, on Senior night at Alton J. Brooks Stadium.

"We had too many turnovers on offense," Scots Coach Chip Williams said. "I thought we played a fairly close game for how many turnovers we had."

After blocking a punt attempt on Scotland's first possession, the Pirates took over in favorable field position. From there they marched down as tailback Brent Bristow finished off the drive with a 19-yard run. Connor Haskins point after made it 7-0 with 5:51 left in the first quarter. Bristow, a junior finished with 12 rushes for 68 yards.

Safety Damien Troy picked off Murphy not once, but twice in the game. The senior's first pick set-up Lumberton's ( 7-3, 3-1 SEC) next scoring drive that resulted in quarterback Jason Maynor hooking up with fellow senior, tight end Charles Williamson, for 16-yard touchdown pass making it 14-0 with 8:44 remaining in the second following Haskins point after.

Troy picked up his second interception of the game with less than three minutes to play before halftime, setting up the final touchdown of the first half, a two-yard run by Maurice Lewis to make it 21-0 with less than two minutes to play in the half. The senior fullback was the leading rusher for the Pirates, rushing 16 times for 69 yards and a pair of scores.

Lumberton tacked on three more points as time ran out in the half on a 46-yard field goal by Monte' Barnes that had just enough distance to get through the uprights.

"We consistently put our defense in trouble despite them (the defense) forcing two turnovers," Williams said of the turnovers. "They gave us a chance to score in the first half and we couldn't come close."



Finding themselves down 24-0, Scotland (2-8, 0-4 SEC) was looking to get back into the game, and they managed to find it through the air.

After Devon Lloyd hauled in a big catch in double coverage, he and Murphy would hook up for the Scots first touchdown of the game, a 14-yard pass. The missed point after made it 24-6 with 8:21 left in the third. Lloyd, a senior receiver was the only Scotland player with multiple catches, hauling in a pair for 24 yards.

"Kessler held the offensive line down in the middle and made it hard for us to block," said Williams of Lumberton's defensive lineman.

With less than a minute to go in the quarter, Lewis would score his second rushing touchdown of the game for the Pirates, a 19-yard sprint to the end zone.

The next possession, saw a Murphy pass attempt get tipped and ultimately intercepted by Kinderick Grissett. From there, the junior linebacker took it 48 yards to the house.

The Scots would not go quietly into the night, though, marching down the field with Tony McCrae going in for the score from a yard out. Murphy rushed into the end zone for the two-point conversion to make it 38-14 with 8:50 in the fourth.

Forcing the Pirates to punt on the following possession, Lamar McIntyre found his way to the punter and blocked the attempt and ran it in for a touchdown. Latrell Adams completed the conversion.

Following the score, the Scots could not muster any points in the final six minutes of the game, while Murphy ended up getting intercepted two more times, once by Larry Hearne Jr. and then by Terrance Powell. The sophomore signal caller completed just 5-of-13 passes for 67 yards and a touchdown.

Scotland will return home for their regular season finale on Friday, when they take on the Richmond Raiders at 7:30 p.m. Like the Pirates, seventh-ranked in 4-A Richmond also has an elected shrine bowl player, offensive lineman Alex Coulthard.