MOUNT AIRY -- West Wilkes beat Elkin in baseball for the seventh straight time since moving to 1A on Wednesday night, 10-6 in the second round of the Northwest 1A Conference tournament.

Elkin started out strong, getting the bases loaded in the first inning, but Matt Hinson grounded out to end the inning and leave the Elks with no run.

Elkin's Travis Myers got off to a strong start from the hill, allowing only one runner to reach in the first inning and striking out West slugger Josh Zumbrook. But things went downhill in the bottom of the second inning, with West scoring four runs.

The Blackhawks kept adding the runs and went into the bottom of the fifth inning with a 10-0 lead over the Elks.

"West took advantage of our mistakes and that got us down by a lot," Elkin coach Steve Martin would say after the game.

But the Buckin' Elks refused to allow the Hawks to send them home via the mercy rule. Martin's team mounted a comeback that featured RBIs from Brian Carter, Matt Carter and Matt Hinson -- and a pair more from Brian Carter's younger brother, Josh.

Elkin shut down West in the top of the sixth and went into the top of the seventh down by five. Kyle Whitman got on base for the Elks to start the rally back up, but David Tilley would ground into a double play. Those turned out to be two important base-runners as Brian Carter followed the play with his third home run of the season, cutting the lead to 10-6.

The Blackhawks would buckle down from there and sit down the Elks to advance into the conference tournament championship.

"West is a good ball team, but we competed with them and didn't give up." Martin said.

Elkin will travel to Norwood next Friday night to take on South Stanly High in the first round of the state playoffs.

This will be the second matchup for the teams in baseball in the last three years. To add to this, South Stanly and Elkin also played football the same year they played baseball, with the Elks coming out on top in football and the Rebel Bulls on top in baseball.

They also played each other in football this season with the Rebel Bulls winning this time, so can the Elks keep the pattern going and pull the upset in baseball? Stay tuned.