Technique and finesse took a back seat on Monday night at Panther Valley's Middle School gymnasium, as Schuylkill League rivals Jim Thorpe and Panther Valley met for the first time this season.

In a physical contest that saw nearly 40 fouls called and just as many turnovers, the Lady Panthers outmuscled the Lady Olympians for a 43-31 victory."Anytime you can get a league win against a rival team (like Jim Thorpe) early in the season, it's nice for your program," said Panther Valley coach Brad Hurley. "It's nice to start 2-0. It gets the girls' confidence up."The teams combined to shoot 20-of-43 at the free throw line. Panther Valley connected on 11-of-21 foul shots while Jim Thorpe made 9-of-22.Panther Valley (2-0) pressured Jim Thorpe (0-3) throughout the contest, forcing nearly 25 JT turnovers with a stifling 1-2-2 zone defense, but that pressure defense also led to some early foul trouble for PV, which forced Hurley to juggle his lineup throughout the night."That's where our role players came in," the coach said. "Jess Jacobs, Amy Corby, Megan Marouchoc… any role players that can come off the bench and give you minutes when you have players in foul trouble are invaluable."You can't just have a strong starting five. We got in foul trouble tonight and those girls came in and played well. They didn't light up the scoreboard, but they did the little things on the court to keep the game at a distance so we still had a comfortable lead when our starters came back in."Madison Blasko and Macey Markovich paced the Lady Panthers with 16 and 15 points, respectively. Markovich nailed five three-pointers while Blasko went a perfect 7-for-7 from the free throw line.PV's Jamey Mikovich scored seven points, while Taylor Vance netted four.Panther Valley jumped on Jim Thorpe early, taking a 13-6 lead after the first quarter. The Lady Olympians fought back to cut the deficit to 21-20 at halftime, but couldn't carry the momentum into the second half, as PV surged ahead after the break and never looked back."We need to come out better to start the game and after halftime," said Jim Thorpe coach Rob Kovac. "If you're going to win at the high school level, you have to score more than 11 points in the second half."Gabby Binder paced the Lady Olympians with 12 points, while Cat Condly chipped in 10 and Alexis Naranjo added eight."I really do think we're getting better," said Kovac. "A year ago, we were losing games and we weren't competitive. We've played three games this year and we've been in all three games until the fourth quarter."We have a number of underclassmen that are giving us serious minutes. We're becoming more competitive and I can see us starting to do some things that maybe a year ago we didn't do, but ultimately being competitive and winning a basketball game are two different things. That's the next step for us."A strong start for the Lady Panthers has shown there will be little drop-off from the squad that qualified for the District 11 playoffs a year ago, which is no small feat for a team with a first-year head coach."I'm really proud of how the girls have come out, going 2-0," said Hurley. "This program has had to go through a lot over the last few seasons and to come out, play hard, and get back-to-back wins just speaks to the character and loyalty of these girls to the Panther Valley basketball program."JIM THORPEDougherty 0-0-0-0, Cope 0-0-0-0, Condly 4-2-7-10, Ennis 0-1-2-1, Rusbarsky 0-0-0-0, Cressman 0-0-0-0, Naranjo 3-2-6-8, Becker 0-0-0-0, Bush 0-0-2-0, Binder 4-4-5-12. TOTALS: 11-9-22-31.PANTHER VALLEYMarouchoc 0-0-0-0, Blasko 4-7-7-16, Vance 1-2-2-4, Corby 0-0-0-0, Jacobs 0-0-0-0, Smith 0-1-4-1, M. Markovich 5-0-0-15, Mikovich 3-1-8-7. TOTALS: 13-11-21-43.Jim Thorpe 6 14 4 9 - 31Panther Vy. 13 8 12 10 - 43Three-pointers: M. Markovich 5, Blasko 1.