Since his basketball team has had trouble scoring, first-year Jim Thorpe head coach Grant Whary decided to make one thing a priority in his practice planning.

Defense.Thursday night the Olympians (2-2) forced 12 turnovers and held Pine Grove to just 10 field goals and only 1-for-9 from the floor in the fourth quarter en route to a 43-29 victory."We only scored 30 points against Mahanoy Area and just 37 against Marian," said Whary. "So we have been stressing defense. We held Schuykill Haven to 40 and tonight was even better against Pine Grove."JT's 2-3 zone kept the Cardinals (1-2) from getting good looks at the basket all night and especially prevented any inside penetration. While Pine Grove was netting a scant two baskets in the first eight minutes, Thorpe had four players score a bucket apiece to take an 8-5 lead.In the second quarter, senior Deonte St. Hill drained two treys within 16 seconds and Shane Snisky tallied six points off the glass to build the Olympian lead to 23-14 at the break."We rebounded especially well tonight", said Whary. This was evident as most of the Cardinals' shot attempts were one-and-done.Just 30 seconds into the third quarter Pine Grove was able to cut its deficit to seven on two free throws from Nick Cataldo, but never threatened to make a run after that. Bryce Micciche's jumper from the top of the key with one minute left in the third lengthened the Thorpe lead to 31-20."We couldn't execute," said Cardinal coach Frank D'Agostino. "They forced turnovers and when we had possession, we couldn't get the ball into good shooting spots. And even when we did, we were hesitant to pull the trigger."At the start of the fourth, Micciche's three-pointer put the Olympians up by 10 and they controlled of the pace and the outcome the rest of the way. Steve Principe sank 6-of-8 foul shots in the final 1:40 to complete the scoring.Jim Thorpe was led by by Snisky and Micciche, who scored 12 points each, while Pine Grove's Kobe D'Agostino was the only Cardinal to reach double figures with 10.Whary continues to stress the importance of "team" to his players. In fact, during the announcements of starting players at the opening of the game, all Olympians remain at the bench and no one runs onto the floor."Since they can't announce everyone, we don't make a preference of anyone," he said. "That's because we don't want to make our starters feel like they are more important than the rest of the team. Tonight all our players played with intensity and I couldn't be happier with our effort and of course the results."PINE GROVECataldo 0-2-2-2, A. White 4-0-0-8, Kiser 0-2-4-2, D'Agostino 4-2-2-10, Weinus 1-1-2-3, Keefer 1-2-3-4, Rossi 0-0-0-0, Blankenhorn 0-0-0-0, T. White 0-0-0-0, J. White 0-0-0-0, Mars 0-0-0-0. TOTALS: 10-9-13-29.JIM THORPESt. Hill 3-0-1-8, Principe 1-6-8-8, Snisky 5-2-8-12, Lawrence 1-1-2-3, Micciche 5-0-0-12, B. Carroll 0-0-0-0, Pompa 0-0-0-0, Acker 0-0-0-0, Green 0-0-0-0. TOTALS: 15-8-11-43.Pine Grove 5 9 10 5 29Jim Thorpe 8 15 8 12 43Three-pointers: PG - None; JT - St. Hill 2, Micciche 2.