Jeff Linville/The News
East Surry’s Lucas Koons delivers a pitch against North Davidson Tuesday. The Cards are taking part in a new summer league this year.
Jeff Linville/The News
First baseman Seth Brim chases down a pop-up in foul territory.
PILOT MOUNTAIN — East Surry won 7-2 over North Davidson as part of a new five-county summer league.
East Surry, Surry Central and Mount Airy are fielding teams to play against others in the region like North Davidson, South Stokes and several Forsyth-area teams, noted East Coach Chad Freeman.
Freeman coaches the JV team during the school year and assists Barry Hall with the varsity team. Hall said he is taking the summer off.
Freeman said Matt Scott is coaching the Central team, but Bears Coach Jon Cawley is busy this summer and can’t coach. Mark Dean Overfelt will coach the Mount Airy team in his place.
Yes, this summer league comes right on the heels of the school season, but this is the time when kids can work on improving themselves, noted Freeman. Football and basketball players have informal workouts now as well.
Because of things like summer vacations, jobs and other obligations, the teams will have one roster instead of a JV and varsity. East Surry has 15 boys playing, about half who played varsity this spring and the others who played JV.
Teams can play as little as 10 games in this new league, but East is playing 16 or 17, the coach said. Surry Central is somewhere in between, he added.
Most teams want to get as much playing time as possible for the kids, so the league will allow the games to go either the standard seven innings or nine innings like the majors.
The Cards went seven innings Tuesday in beating the Knights 7-2.
Lucas Koons started and went five innings for the win. He gave up just three hits and one walk, allowing one run and striking out three.
“Lucas threw very well for us,” said Freeman.
John Snow relieved in the sixth, followed by Seth Brim in the seventh.
“I was pleased with all our pitchers,” said Freeman. They tended to throw strikes, only walking two. Snow didn’t throw as much as Lucas in the school season, he noted. Snow is going to get better with more work, he believed.
Brim threw one shutout inning. He is 6-foot-5 so he can throw downhill, Freeman said.
For the most part, the defense made the plays in the field.
Offensively, East was led by Scott Meredith going 2-3 with two runs scored and catcher Carson Long going 2-4 with a run and two RBIs.
Koons helped his own cause with a single, a run and an RBI. He also had a hard shot to leftcenter that would have been a double except for a stabbing grab by the leftfielder on the move.
Snow, Preston Smith and Brian Banks also had one hit each. Weston Payne had a sacrifice fly to right.
Including Logan Sheets, the team had just nine players available Tuesday. Other varsity players who will be on the team this season are Cody Ashburn, Jeremy Gilley and Cameron Sheets. JV players who will see time are Madison Chilton, Joshua Sawyers and Alec Wilson.
The Cards will host South Stokes Thursday in a nine-inning game starting at 6 p.m. Then in a rare weekend game, the Cards will play Surry Central on Sunday afternoon.
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