Two of the top teams in the Mountain Valley 2-A Conference will meet tonight in a battle for conference standing, when the North Surry girls (13-3, 6-1) host Ashe County (16-1, 6-1), in what promises to be a high intensity contest.

Going into tonight’s meeting North and Ashe sit in a three way tie for first place with Starmount.

The Greyhounds come off a 42-18 win over Surry Central Tuesday, in which they used an extremely balanced scoring attack to run away with the win.

Eight North Surry players scored in that game, and coach Shane Slate said Thursday after his teams practice that balance is something he sees as a strength for the Greyhounds.

“I think it makes us much more difficult to defend because you really can’t key on one or even two particular people,” Slate said. “We’ve always had good games with Ashe. They’ve really been more balanced over the last few years than we have because we have had two good players in Whitley Culler and Alicia Wallace and we kind of adjusted for what they could do for us, but balanced is the way we would prefer to play.”

While North Surry utilizes a steady offense, Ashe County has similar fire power, led by 5-9 senior captain’s Kim McNeil and Shelly Barker, along with a bevy of complementary players.

Ashe also has good size across the board, with only two of their 11 players listed at under 5-8.

North Surry too has relied on their size this season, with the trio of Courtney Campbell, Nicole Rumplasch and Lindsey Payne, all 5-10, playing big roles in the Greyhounds success.

Slate said he doesn’t expect tonight’s game to be just a low post fight, with versatile players like Campbell and McNeil on both sides to force each team to play good all around defense.

“When we were playing them the first time I said it was going to be a game of forwards, because you have so many players that are in that 5-7 to 5-10 range,” Slate said. “But they are all forwards that have perimeter skills. Everybody does a lot of different things, it’s not, ‘She’s a low block player, so we defend her that way,’ and they can’t do that to us, so it makes for a pretty evenly matched contest.”

The Huskies head into King Gymnasium on a 13 game win streak, with their only loss coming to conference foe Starmount, 69-68 in Boonville, Dec. 19.

North defeated Starmount handily, 51-36, on Jan. 9.

The Greyhounds last loss and only conference defeat came at the hands of Ashe, with North falling 46-38 in West Jefferson, Jan. 2.

Shelly Barker led the Huskies with 15 points in the win, with Lindsey Payne pacing the Greyhounds with 10 points.

North Surry also has losses to East Surry and Mount Airy earlier this season.

With conference standing and tournament seeding possibly on the line in tonight’s meeting, Slate said the atmosphere and importance of the matchup with a team like Ashe County is something both players and coaches look forward too.

“It’s a lot of fun,” Slate said. “We’ve kind of been in that atmosphere at their place already and the Starmount game here was along those same lines. That’s the reason you play, you want to be in those situations where it’s a competitive game and there are things on the line and there is a good atmosphere to play in and we’ve experienced that over the last few years. They know what to expect and they’ll be ready.”

The North Surry boys matchup against Ashe is also an important meeting, with the Greyhounds looking to break out of a log jam behind the Huskies in the MVC 2-A Conference standings.

North currently sits at 5-3 in the conference behind Wilkes Central, North Wilkes and first place Ashe. A win could help the Greyhounds distinguish themselves from the pack and knock Ashe County back down towards the middle of the conference.

Tonight’s meeting between North Surry and Ashe County will begin with junior varsity games starting at 4 p.m.