PILOT MOUNTAIN — This is going to sound familiar.

After losing the first game of its softball playoff series, East Surry battled back and moved on to a state championship tournament. The team in question, however, is not the high school, which capped back-to-back state titles by recovering from a first-game tournament loss in early June, but rather the East Surry Junior Girls 13- and 14-year-old squad.

After fighting through a series with High point Little League, the girls are off to Rutherfordton for the state championships. The tournament includes five teams and is double elimination. East Surry’s first game is 2 p.m. Saturday.

If not for a team meeting called after a 9-3 loss to High Point in the first of that three-game series, East Surry might be sitting at home right now. The players-only gathering settled the team down and culminated with a 16-5 drubbing of High Point in game two. East Surry won the rubber match, 9-6.

“In the 9-3 loss, we had a lot of errors,” East Surry coach Keith Cummings said. “They pretty much re-grouped themselves and focused on how to beat High Point.”

Another obstacle the team must overcome is its overall youth. Cummings said his team will be one of the youngest teams at the state finals. For most of the season, the youth of the team was not a big factor.

“They found a way to win all year,” Cummings said. “We were smaller and younger, but we were able to find a way to win.”

However, the best of the best will be on hand to battle it out for Tar Heel State supremacy. Now the team must put itself in a position to win, instead of finding a way to pull out the victory. One thing Cummings pointed out was his squad needs to tighten up its defense. Errors were the biggest factor in all of his team’s losses this year.

“We have got to get our defense stronger,” Cummings said.

East Surry was able to make up for any shortcomings by batting a robust .304 as a team, led by Kelsey Wilson’s .455 batting average. The pitching staff was led by the three-headed monster of Kristen Cummings, Brooke Bowman and Mikala Edwards. The hurlers were used less like a softball rotation and more like that of a baseball shift. Starts were divided equally and Keith Cummings frequently switched pitchers mid-game to give opponents different looks.

From Saturday until, potentially, Tuesday, East Surry will try its best to emulate the high school squad and bring home a state championship. Either way, it looks like softball in Pilot Mountain is in good hands for the next few years.

Here’s a list of players and coaches of the East Surry Junior Girls 13- and 14-year-old team:

Players

Molly Martin

Ally Rogers

Kelsey Wilson

Kristen Cummings

Brooke Bowman

Meghan Sechrist

Mikala Edwards

Meagan Hudson

Brittany Meyers

Cassidy Joyner

Maddison Hawks

Coaches

Ketih Cummings (head coach)

Duane Wilson and Tony Martin (assistants)