CURRITUCK – The Bears are continuing to pick up steam.

Hertford County High School’s baseball team won their second straight and fifth of their last six Tuesday night, defeating Currituck County High School 3-2 in a Northeastern Coastal Conference game.

“Brandon Warren pitched another great game for us,” said veteran HCHS baseball boss Chris Towell. “We took a big step forward tonight. We took advantage of Currituck’s mistakes in the third inning.”

Hertford County scored all three of its runs in the top of the third inning.

Monterio Hunter led off with an infield single and promptly stole second. Hunter scored on a Travis Ellis RBI-triple to right-center field and then Ellis scored when Richard Burns got aboard via an error.

Burns stole second and went to third on an error. With two outs, Edward Joyner delivered an RBI-double to right to give the Bears a 3-0 lead.

Currituck responded with two runs in the bottom of the sixth when Ryan Nicastro belted a two-run homer, but that was all the scoring the Knights would get.

In the bottom of the seventh inning, Warren retired the Knights in order to preserve the victory.

Warren went all seven innings for Hertford County on the mound, allowing two runs on two hits while striking out nine. He improved to 4-2 with the win.

The Bears had three hits, all coming in the third inning. Ellis and Joyner each had one hit and one RBI while Hunter had one hit.

“We are manufacturing runs and that wins games,” Towell said. “This was a big conference win for us.”

The victory gave Hertford County the lead in the 3-A division of the Northeastern Coastal Conference, having defeated both Bertie and Currituck, the other two members of the division.

They are also in third place overall in the conference, one game behind First Flight and Edenton who are tied for first, midway through the conference calendar.

The Bears are now 7-5 overall and 4-2 in the league. They travel to First Flight tonight (Thursday) for another Northeastern Coastal Conference contest. First pitch is 7 p.m.