DOBSON — With a season, albeit a tough one, under his belt, Surry Community College head baseball coach Jamie Lowe is now undertaking the task of retooling his team for the upcoming season.

At a two-year school turnover is quick, so one of the main duties of a community college head coach is to constantly be on the look out for top prospects.

With signing running until school starts in the fall, Lowe has already gotten a jump on replacing this season’s graduating players.

Lowe has had a total of 14 players to sign a National Letter of Intent to play in Dobson so far and says several are close but have not made a final decision yet.

Lowe has been on the recruiting trail since October and will be looking until August.

Surry has already held a try out for some local prospects and will hold one more open tryout for players before school starts in August.

Of the 14 signees, nine are from North Carolina, with four coming from surrounding counties.

Tyler Howard of Starmount and Zach Fleshman of West Stokes are the closest recruits to Dobson along with Brandon Harrison of Glenn and Tanner Beck of Parkland.

Lowe also landed a couple of recruits who will be a fair ways from home when they take the field in Dobson next spring, with Aaron Conrad making his way to Surry County from Mallone, Fla. and Will Hardin traveling from Spartanburg, S.C.

Lowe said he is particularly excited about Howard and Fleshman’s prospects of helping the Knights right away.

With Howard, Lowe said he knows he has one of the best players from the area.

“We are looking at him (Howard) to step in a be a good player hopefully right off the bat,” Lowe said “We are looking to use him on the mound and possibly behind the plate right away. He’s mid to upper 80’s with his fastball we feel like he is a good player. He is one of the better local players we could get to play at Surry.”

Fleshman also is a pitcher and Lowe said he should compete for time at shortstop.

Lowe said Beck and Mike Herman (Piedmont) have the opportunity to improve the Knights lineup immediately while competing for infield positions.

But with a large class and what Lowe thinks is a strong nucleus coming back, the coach said gauging the impact of Surry’s newcomers is a difficult task.

“It’s going to be interesting,” he said. “It’s hard for me to say that these guys who have been hitting high school pitching are going to come in and be successful. It’s going to be a test of what I’ve done as a coach but it’s hard to tell until they get here.”

Lowe said he has more players coming in next season than he has coming back, something which will allow the Knights to have a different demeanor than this past season.

“I feel like what we’ve got now coming back is a pretty good nucleus,” Lowe said. “If we’ve done a good job recruiting we will add to that and our team will get better.”