North Surry ignored the heat Tuesday against South Stokes to pick up its first home tennis win of the season, 6-3.

The Greyhounds narrowly missed sweeping the Sauras for their second win of the season, but dropped two close singles matches and one doubles contest.

After a 6-2 first set victory, North’s Nick Morgan lost a 7-6 (8-6) second set and a 14-12 third set tie breaker to South’s J. Matt Marshall after the Greyhounds No. 3 seed had match point in the final set at 10-9.

The Greyhounds No. 5 seed Nick Davis secured a big win for North after he bounced back from a 6-4 first set loss to win 6-4, 10-7 over Tyler Chrisman.

In a day of long matches, North’s No. 6 seed Landon Hodges had perhaps the longest and toughest match overall. Hodges finally succumbed in a two-hour, two set thriller 7-5 (7-4), 7-6 (7-4) to South’s Alex Simmons. Hodges had 6-5 leads in both sets but could not overcome Simmons in the tiebreakers.

Steven Krause and Nick Morgan gave up the Greyhounds only doubles defeat 10-7 after they led South’s duo of Brent Morse and Matt Childers 5-0.

North Surry improves to 2-6 overall and will host conference leading Mount Airy Wednesday.

North Surry 6, South Stokes 3

SINGLES

Brandon Orndorff (NS) d. Andrew Taylor (SS) injury default; Steven Krause (NS) d. Brent Morse (SS) 6-0, 6-4; J. Matt Marshall (SS) d. Nick Morgan (NS) 2-6, 7-6 (8-6), 14-12; Daniel Taylor (NS) d. Ephraim Harrell (SS) 6-4, 7-5; Nick Davis (NS) d. Tyler Chrisman (SS) 4-6, 6-4, 10-7; Alex Simmons (SS) d. Landon Hodges (NS) 7-6 (7-4), 7-6 (7-4)

DOUBLES

Morse/Childers (SS) d. Krause/Morgan (NS) 10-7; Orndorff/Davis (NS) d. Harrell/Chrisman (SS) 10-5; Taylor/Hodges (NS) d. Justin Owens/Matt Taylor (SS) 10-3

East Surry baseball wins a wild one

BOONVILLE — East Surry was able to fend off a slew of errors to slip by a solid Starmount team Tuesday, 10-8 in baseball action.

The Cardinals had an uncharacteristic six miscues in the field, which accounted for six of the Rams’ eight runs on the day.

But while their defense was somewhat sloppy, the Cardinals bats were near blazing.

East strung together 13 hits, only one of which went for extra bases, and beat back a late Starmount surge in the final innings.

After a three-run top of the sixth, the Cardinals led 9-5 headed into the bottom half of the inning and looked to close the door.

A leadoff single by Starmount started a rally and East didn’t help themselves either, as two errors and a walk set the table for Ram Jake Barr’s second double of the day and when the smoke cleared the Cardinals clung to a 9-8 lead.

East’s Chase Mills singled to start the seventh, Andrew Hunter beat out an infield grounder to put men on first and third with no outs and a wild pitch put the Cardinals up for good at 10-8.

Starmount didn’t make a push in its last at-bat as East Surry escaped with the non-conference win.

Cardinal coach Barry Hall said he was happy to come away with a victory after his team gave Starmount numerous opportunities.

“We had been playing good defense up until tonight. That was the most disappointing thing, but we are proud because they hung in there and battled,” Hall said. “We hit the ball well, the pitching wasn’t bad, we just have to make better plays defensively. We just can’t give away runs. If you make six errors and still come out with a win, you are fortunate. Starmount is a quality team and you can’t give them extra chances or they will make you pay.”

East Surry’s Kyle Shinault finished 2-for-2 with three runs scored, Andrew Hunter was 3-for-3 with two runs, a triple and an RBI and Jordan Miller was 2-for-3 with two RBIs while also picking up the win for the Cardinals.

Starmount was led by senior Jake Barr, who finished 3-for-4 with four runs scored, a pair of doubles and one RBI.

“He (Barr) is by far one of the best players we’ve faced this year,” Hall said. “He hits well, runs well and is just a smart player. He definitely is a quality young man.”

East Surry will travel to West Wilkes today before hosting South Stokes Friday in a double header.

East Surry 10, Starmount 8

ES — 1 0 4 1 0 3 1 — 10 13 6

S — 1 0 2 0 2 3 0 — 8 9 1

WP: Jordan Miller

LP: Hunter

2B: S — Jake Barr (2); 3B: ES — Andrew Hunter

East Surry softball wins, but grows

BOONVILLE — East Surry coach Derrick Hill doesn’t like losing softball games, so he wasn’t exactly happy with the Cardinals’ 4-2 loss to Starmount Tuesday night.

But the positives outweighed the negatives in Hill’s mind and he and the girls left Boonville feeling like they had improved as a team.

“We were overall pleased with the effort and hopefully the kids feel good about the effort,” Hill said. “It’s hard to be happy when you get beat, but if you get beat and think you’re getting better, that’s another thing.”

After losing three games in Greenville this weekend, Hill said he wanted his team to focus on fouling off close pitches in full counts and working on other fundamental aspects of the game.

The Cardinals did do that, getting down some sacrifice bunts and fouling off about eight or nine pitches with two strikes.

“We weren’t as free swinging as we were this past weekend, we only had six strikeouts this game,” Hill said.

That wasn’t enough to curb Starmount’s steady and consistent play though.

The Rams strung together three hits in the third to plate a run and used a sacrifice bunt and two base hits in the fourth for another run.

Two East Surry errors contributed to two more Ram runs in the fourth.

Morgan Chilton knocked in Hayley Shelton in the sixth for East Surry’s first run.

After a home run with one out in the top of the seventh inning from Beth Isaacs, who went 2-2 at the plate, Hill said he was hoping that would spark some momentum.

Two strikeouts later and the game fizzled to an anti-climatic halt.

Hill said he was proud of his girls for stepping up when the team faced adversity during a couple of what they viewed as questionable umpiring calls.

Though that encouraged the coaching staff, he said he didn’t want adversity to be what motivated the team to play hard.

”I think we’re still a work in progress,” Hill said. “We are not accustomed to losing, but at the same time we’re very young and we’re depending on some kids stepping up.”

Hill and the East Surry softball team hope to keep improving tomorrow as they take on Bandys High School at home at 6 p.m.

Starmount 4, East Surry 2

ES: 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 - 2 6 2

S: 0 0 1 1 2 0 0 - 4 8 0

WP: Courtney Groce

LP: Hayley Shelton

2B —ES: Samantha Smith, Morgan Chilton; S: Chelsea Varner. HR— ES: Beth Isaacs