EAST STROUDSBURG - The Mountain Valley Conference hasn't been too kind to the Lehighton boys' soccer team.

While powerhouse programs like Pleasant Valley and Stroudsburg have dominated the MVC in recent memory, the Indians had never even qualified for the conference playoffs.That changed this season, however, as Lehighton earned an MVC playoff berth for the first time in its history. The Indians then showed they belonged with the MVC "big boys" by stunning top-seeded and previous unbeaten Pleasant Valley in the semifinals.Lehighton's first-ever postseason soccer victory earned it a shot at another potential first an MVC championship.Unfortunately for the Indians however, Stroudsburg, the tourney's No. 2 seed, found creases in their impressive defensive allignment and handed them a 2-0 setback on Saturday ay East Stroudsburg South High School.The loss didn't overshadow what has been an outstanding season for the Indians up until this point."You go back to the third game of the season, we got beat by (Pocono Mountain) East 5-0," Lehighton coach Dave Yob said. "We could have folded up the tents right there and then, but we didn't. Instead, we talked about making history and becoming the first boys soccer team to make it to districts."Little did we think we would be the first team to make it to the MVC finals as well as win 11 games so far, which is a school record for boys' soccer. We just keep adding to the pages that we have written so far and hopefully we have a few more to write."The Indians ran into another conference foe, Stroudsburg, that had handed them setbacks during the regular season. The Mounties got the best of the Indians on Sept. 6th (3-1) in Lehighton and Sept. 26th (2-0) in Stroudsburg.Over the first 48 minutes of play, the Indians were able to follow the same game plan that worked so well against Pleasant Valley a few days ago . But, with 32:11 left to play, the Mounties' Nicola Scattolon finally broke the scoreless tie.Teammate Christian Bukowski, the conference MVP, was credited with the assist. Bukowski added an insurance goal with 24:08 left to ruin any thought of another huge upset for the Indians.Instead, Stroudsburg coach Michael Kane and his program defended last year's MVC title and secured their fifth conference title in history."Lehighton has a good team," Kane said. "They defended well in the first half. We knew we had to pressure them and not go into overtime with them. We didn't want to go to PKs. We saw what happened in the PV game. So, we avoided that with those two goals."Yob said he was "pleased" that his Indians made it to the conference's "big dance"."Actually, I'm disappointed with the final result, but I cannot fault my kids at all," Yob said. "They played hard all the way to the end. We gave them a game and that's about what we came in to do in the first place."We didn't want to be embarrassed. So, the whole thing was to play hard and to maybe get lucky and get a goal in and then work from there. But, it didn't happen that way."