AHOSKIE – The real winner was the heat.

Ahoskie Post 102’s American Legion junior baseball team played their annual early weekend double-header Saturday and despite the 11a.m.starting time temperatures still soared into the high-90’s

The one thing that didn’t heat up: the Ahoskie bats, as they lost the first of the twin-bill – the conference game – to Northern Nash (County) Post 110, 8-6.

Both teams tallied nine hits, but Northern Nash erupted for four runs in the top of the seventh inning to break a 4-4 tie and then held off a furious Ahoskie comeback in the bottom of the frame.

Ahoskie’s Shawn Holloway was 2-for-2, knocking in a run and scoring another while both Chris Rogerson and Nathan Pearce went 2-for-4 with Rogerson driving in three runs and Pearce scoring twice.

However, Post-102 left the base loaded two times in the contest.

“We did all we could,” said Ahoskie coach Wayne Hill. “We just came up short and the heat didn’t help.

“They gave it all they had,” he added, “but it was so hot and I could see that they just couldn’t go any more.”

After a scoreless first inning, Northern Nash broke through with a couple of runs in the top of the second inning for an early 2-0 lead.

Ahoskie countered in the bottom of the second when Pearce got a base hit and moved to second when Holloway drew a base-on-balls.

Perry Wynns’ sacrifice fly moved the runners to second and third and ,one out later, Rogerson delivered his first run-batted-in with a single to right field, scoring Pearce and cutting the deficit to one at 2-1.

Northern Nash put up two more runs in the top of the third before Post 102 got one back in the bottom of the inning.

Joseph Eure and Austin Britton had back-to-back safeties before Darren Armstrong flew out deep to left field to advance both runners and Eure later scored on a wild pitch.

Ahoskie then went ahead in the bottom of the fifth when Armstrong drew a one-out walk followed by Pearce’s single up the middle. Holloway then sent a shot to deep left scoring Armstrong and when the outfielder misplayed the ball, Pearce raced home to tie the game at 4-all.

Despite giving up four runs in the top of the seventh, Ahoskie battled back in their final at-bats. A couple of blooper singles and a walk followed by Rogerson’s two-out dinger produced two runs and got the home team within a pairm but Northern Nash ended the comeback with a strikeout.

The loss dropped Ahoskie into second place in the standings at 5-3 in league play and