North Surry put together a strong defensive performance Tuesday, knocking off Northwest 1A/2A conference rival East Surry 42-23.

The Cardinals failed to break double-digits in any quarter, while North Surry’s Morgan Midkiff was just shy of equaling the Cardinals point total with a game-high 17.

The Greyhounds held East Surry leader Kelsey Long to five points, and no Cardinal reached double figures.

North Surry kept its hands in the passing lanes, forced turnovers and kept pressure in the back court all night, never letting the Cardinals scrounge out any breathing room.

“That’s what we want to do,” North Surry coach Shane Slate said. “We like turnovers, but we just want to make sure they have a hard time running their offense. I feel like we did a pretty good job of that, putting pressure on the ball and keeping them from having many easy entry passes inside.”

The Greyhounds led by as much as 22 points in the fourth quarter, and highlighted that by an 11-0 run.

East Surry coach Keith Gunter said his team just couldn’t buy a bucket mainly due to a strong defensive performance from North Surry.

“We couldn’t get shots, we couldn’t get good looks and my hat’s off to them,” Gunter said. “They played great defense and had a great defensive game plan we were frustrated and that’s one of the things we need to work on.”

Long, who had 28 just one night earlier against East Wilkes, was held to five points. Slate said he thought it was important to keep the Cardinals primary offensive weapon from breaking out.

“I thought last year she had a big game against us in the first game here and we did a better job on her in the second game at the end of the year and we kind of looked at that as the way we wanted to approach it,” Slate said.

Despite the big win Slate said he was still not entirely pleased with his team’s shot selection or its overall offensive output.

“I don’t think in the first quarter we took good jumpshots because we weren’t getting any kind of penetration,” he said. “Once we started doing that, then we started hitting some jumpshots. Early on I thought we were a little too quick on the trigger.”

North Surry 42, East Surry 23

East Surry — Nichols 8, Cole 5, Long 5, Bryant 4, Fulp 2

North Surry — Morgan Midkiff 17, Culler 6, Rumplasch 6, Bunker 4, Hodges 4, Campbell 3, Smith 2